Captain Marvel 2
by Brenador
Summary: A sequel to "Captain Marvel: The Adaptation", which continues the story of Captain Marvel in a modern, cinematic format.
1. Chapter 1

Mary Bromfield smiled as the text "93%" appeared on the computer screen. She was practicing for a spelling bee, and had just completed an electronic practice test. She heard the familiar _beep_ that showed she had just received a new message on Facebook, which was open in another tab of the internet browser she was using.

"Oh, Joshua, how long before you realize there'll never be anything between us," Mary said out loud as she typed a reply to the Facebook message, trying not to lead Joshua on but also trying not to break his heart. Mary was not so strikingly gorgeous as to catch every boy's attention, but she was both pretty and popular, and that combination tended to attract the occasional unwanted crush.

"Mary, breakfast is ready," Nora Bromfield called from downstairs, her voice carrying through the door of Mary's room.

"It's not ready yet," Nick Bromfield cut in. "The timer still says two minutes."

"Do you have to make that distinction," Nora said.

"It's still not ready," Nick said stubbornly.

Mary smiled, amused as usual by her adoptive parents' bickering. "I'll be right there," she called out.

Mary closed her Facebook tab before another one of her friends could send her any more messages, glanced at a book that was open on her bed, and then descended the stairs to join Nick and Nora.

After breakfast, Mary gathered her schoolbooks and drove to school in the car that her parents had bought her as a present for her sixteenth birthday. She was living an idyllic life, with a loving, upper middle-class family. At school, she had many friends, and she was a member of the "in crowd", while still doing well in her classes. But there were still times when she remembered another life, a life before the one she had now.

_Bangkok, Thailand_

The scar-faced criminal grinned hideously as he aimed a gun at the back of Billy Batson's head. He pulled the trigger, and the gunshot was deafeningly loud in the enclosed space as the bullet struck the back of Billy's skull – and bounced off with a sound nearly as loud as the gunshot. The bullet whistled over the thug's head, narrowly missing him.

In the invulnerable form of Captain Marvel, Billy spun around and grabbed the thug's arm, wrenching it around with a sudden _crack_ as the bone snapped. The gun fell from the thug's hand, and Billy pushed the thug against the wall, holding him up by the throat using only one hand. Three other criminals lay unconscious on the floor behind Billy.

Billy had been searching for Mary Batson, his long-lost twin sister, for over a week now. When their parents were murdered by Theo Templeton ten years ago, Billy had been safe in America, but Mary had been kidnapped and presumably sold by Theo's associates. Less than a month ago, Billy had met the wizard Shazam, who had given him the power to transform into the superhero called Captain Marvel by speaking Shazam's name, which would call down a lightning bolt to change his form, and give him the powers of six ancient gods: Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.

But Theo had a similar power, as the reincarnation of Teth-Adam, Shazam's previous champion. Billy fought Teth-Adam, who became known to the media as Black Adam, and had defeated him using Shazam's lightning bolt, which forced Adam back into the form of Theo, leaving him badly injured and unable to speak. Theo was now in a New York hospital, where the doctors did not know who he was. Theo had betrayed and murdered Billy's parents, and had pretended to take care of Billy, but Billy knew that he could not expose Theo to the world, since people could then figure out that superheroes like Captain Marvel and Black Adam could change form by magic. Billy knew that his greatest weakness was that he had no powers as Billy Batson, and if his identity was known, an ordinary mortal could kill him from a distance with a sniper rifle.

In his search for Mary, Billy had not discovered any definite leads as to her location, but he had started his own private crusade against the evil of human trafficking. He had traveled throughout the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, and had saved many victims of human trafficking while apprehending the criminals. He had started out just trying to find Mary, but he had been moved by the plight of these people, most of whom were young women, and he had continued his crusade, even though he knew there was little chance of finding Mary here in Bangkok.

He'd encountered numerous criminals recently, which had taught him that the best way to get criminals to cooperate was through fear. Criminals respected and feared strength, and one of the most frightening ways to show the Strength of Hercules that Captain Marvel possessed was to hold a man up by the throat using only one hand. The threat was clear, as Billy was showing that he could easily snap the criminal's neck just as easily as he could flick his wrist. The man Billy was pinning against the wall probably deserved to die, as he was a murderer and a kidnapper many times over, as the Historama had told Billy, but Captain Marvel was not an executioner. However, the scar-faced thug did not know that.

"Where are they?" Billy demanded.

"I don't know who you're talking about," the thug choked out, still able to speak because Billy was not actually choking him, just holding him up. The thug did not speak in English, but Billy had no trouble understanding him, because the Wisdom of Solomon understood all languages.

Billy momentarily increased the pressure, as if he was going to crush the thug's neck. He wasn't, but the thug didn't know that, and the thug felt a moment of utter terror.

"Don't kill me, Marvel," pleaded the thug. "The women – there were fourteen of them – we let them go. We know who you are, Marvel. We know what you would do to us. They were here, but they're free now. You can search all you want, but you won't find them. You- you've already saved them."

Billy tapped the thug's head against the wall, knocking him unconscious. Police sirens approached, and soon the four unconscious criminals were arrested. Billy suspected that the criminals may have had some kind of understanding with the police to avoid being caught after running their operation for so long, but not even a corrupt cop would want to risk having Captain Marvel as an enemy.

Billy and the Bangkok police searched the building, but found no sign of the fourteen women. After he realized that the scar-faced thug probably was telling the truth, Billy flew away, hovering a few feet above a street in one of the poor districts of Bangkok.

"Help us, Marvel," a citizen pleaded. "There's a fire. Over there."

Billy looked where the citizen was pointing, and saw a plume of smoke rising in the distance.

"I'll get right on it," Billy said, flashing his trademark grin.

He took off into the sky, flying towards the fire. A poorly constructed three-story building was engulfed in flames, and a man was hanging out of an upper window, crying for help. Billy flew towards the window, and grabbed the man, pulling him out of the building and setting him down in front of it, producing an enthusiastic cheer from the people on the street who were struggling to put out the fire. Even though he had never been to Thailand, everybody knew who he was.

"My wife's in there," the man Billy had saved said in a terrified voice. "She's trapped. Please save her, Captain Marvel."

Billy flew up to the building, and with the enhanced senses granted to him by the Wisdom of Solomon, he heard a woman's frantic, oxygen-starved cries for help. Following the sound, he flew through a window and hovered above the floor on the second story of the building. He quickly took in the scene. Flames were everywhere, burning all around the trapped woman. She would soon die from smoke inhalation if Billy did not carry her out of the building, but he could not do that without carrying her through the flames. Billy was immune to the flames, but he could not completely shield the woman.

Suddenly, the Wisdom of Solomon helped Billy remember a spell that Shazam had been teaching him. He could barely pronounce its twenty-syllable-long name, so he simply thought of it as an ice spell. Billy had never tried to put out a fire before, although he had saved people from burning buildings. Hovering at the edge of the flames, Billy focused on the spell, using the Power of Zeus to cast it as the Wisdom of Solomon guided him.

White energy blasted forth from his hands, forcing the flames to retreat and clear a path to the trapped woman. Billy wasted no time in flying to her and carrying her through the hole in the flames. Just as they were leaving the building, the fire flared back into existence where Billy had recently put it out. He barely managed to shield the woman from the flames, but as he set her down on the street, he knew that he could not put this fire out magically. There was no sign of the fire department, and he realized that the local firemen might not even care what happens in this district.

He had to put the fire out himself, but he could not do it with magic alone. And then he saw a water tower rising over some tenements to his left, and he got an idea.

"I'll be right back," he said, flashing Captain Marvel's trademark grin.

Billy flew straight at the water tower. Metal screeched as he ripped the water tower off its mountings. He carried the water tower over the tenements, flying while holding up a huge metal ball filled with water. He held the water tower over the burning buildings, and while holding onto it with one hand, he drew back his other hand, clenched his fist, and punched the water tower with the full Strength of Hercules, cracking it open like an eggshell.

A torrent of water poured over the burning building. The people beneath Billy cheered as the rushing water rapidly put out the flames. But then, Billy, who was still holding the water over the building, felt a sudden pain in his shoulders as the weight of the water tower pressed down on him. For a moment, it seemed like the water tower was going to fall and crush the people under Billy. He got a better grip on the water tower, and set it down in the street, with some difficulty. He was utterly surprised, because the Strength of Hercules had never failed before, even for a moment. He did not feel tired, because of the Stamina of Atlas, but there was something wrong with his powers.

When Billy used the Power of Zeus to transport himself back to the Rock of Eternity, he barely noticed the familiar scene. Everything looked the same as it had on the day that he first arrived here and received his powers. The grotesque red granite statues that imprisoned the Seven Deadly Sins were still lined up on the left wall, an eternal flame blazing at the feet of each statue. Shazam was sitting on a golden throne in front of Billy, a pyramidal block of stone hanging over his head by a slender thread. On Shazam's right, there were shelves containing a plethora of magical items. The strangest thing here was an ordinary brown wooden box, which looked like it was from the 18th or 19th Century. It was so conspicuous because it was completely ordinary. It was closed, and could only be opened through a keyhole. Sometimes, Billy had wondered what was inside the box. The only noticeable difference in the Rock of Eternity was the slight damage to its cave-like walls that had been inflicted when Teth-Adam invaded it last month.

This time, the crystal ball known as the Historama was resting on a table next to Shazam. Rather than staring into the Historama as was his habit, Shazam was examined an ornate dagger that shone so brightly in the unearthly white torchlight that it seemed to actually glow. Billy had seen the dagger on the shelves, but he had never paid much attention to it before.

"The Dagger of Ares," Shazam said, in response to Billy's unspoken question. "It was the perfect weapon, forged by the Greek god of war. It has the power to kill any creature, even one as powerful as you. Ares used it to slay the demon Ixitor, but the demon's essence corrupted him, and this blade. Ares was once an honorable and heroic figure, but slaying Ixitor turned him into the vicious, bloodthirsty god that he is now. The other gods decided that it would be better for him if he was parted from the weapon that had slain Ixitor, so they gave the dagger to me, because infernal effects cease to exist in the Rock of Eternity. Only something inherently demonic could bring evil into this place, which is why it is vitally important that you never allow any demon to enter the Rock of Eternity, as the forces of Hell have been trying to breach the Rock for thousands of years, but they have not yet succeeded."

"Something is wrong with my powers," Billy said. "I was lifting up a water tower, and I almost dropped it. For a moment, I thought the Strength of Hercules was going to fail me." He said this as if there was no logical reason why he should _not_ be able to easily hold up water towers.

"You have been working too hard, Billy. The Stamina of Atlas means that you will never get tired while you are Captain Marvel, but the power that the gods gave you is still finite, and if you use it too much, it may cease to function properly. If Teth-Adam or a demon was to attack you right now, you would be at a disadvantage. I recommend that you get some rest, and return to your life as Billy Batson."

"What about Mary?" Billy asked.

"I do not believe that your sister is in any immediate danger," Shazam told Billy. "And, you never know. Sometimes the things we seek come to us when we expect them to."

"I have another question," Billy said. "Why didn't the ice spell work as it was supposed to? I know that it is more effective in cold weather, but according to the mathematical formula that you gave me, there is too big a difference between its effectiveness here and its strength in Bangkok for the difference in temperature."

"I am afraid that I have not been entirely honest with you, Billy," Shazam said. He waved a hand, causing a key to flutter into the air from one of the shelves. The key inserted itself into the keyhole of the strangely ordinary wooden box. It turned, and the side of the box swung open. A glass vase filled with what looked like compressed white ice floated out of the wooden box.

"This is part of the remains of Ixitor," Shazam explained. "Long ago, Hell was split between two extremes: Fire and Ice. The ice demons were led by Ixitor, while the infernal demons were led by Neron, who you know of as Satan, or simply "the devil." Ixitor was more interested in affecting the earth directly, so he plunged the world into an ice age. But that was not enough for him, as a great civilization flourished in a land that you would call Atlantis."

"Ixitor struck out against the Atlanteans directly, using his immense power to sink Atlantis into the sea. The gods, who normally avoided direct battles with the forces of Hell, confronted Ixitor directly. Their battle devastated what remained of human civilization, but in the end, Ixitor was slain by the Dagger of Ares. Still, the primal ice that composed his body could not be destroyed, and it possessed the potential to freeze the entire world. This ice was placed in thirteen containers, which were hidden throughout the world. If the containers were to be united, the power of Ixitor would plunge the world into a new ice age far worse than the last, although Ixitor himself cannot be returned to life."

"One of these containers is stored here, in the Rock of Eternity. That is why it is easier for you to practice the ice spell here than in the world beneath us. Even when we are in Bangkok, Ixitor's primal ice still empowers the ice spell whenever it is cast in here."

"We're in Bangkok?" Billy asked. "I thought that the Rock of Eternity always stayed in New York."

"The Rock of Eternity follows you wherever you go," Shazam said. "It is always watching over you, but it will not help you make the journey to New York. That is something you will have to do yourself."

Although he was quite reluctant to give up on his search, Billy listened to the Wisdom of Solomon and decided that he would return to New York. It took him many hours to fly across the Pacific, and by the time he turned back into himself and walked to the Freemans' front door, it was Saturday afternoon.

Fred Freeman had been Billy's best friend since grade school. Fred and his grandfather were the only people who Billy knew would take him in now, after his cruel uncle Ebenezer had kicked him out and the apparently kind Theo had turned out to be a monster.

Jacob Freeman, Fred's grandfather, opened the door and enthusiastically welcomed Billy inside.

"We were worried about you, Billy. We thought something could have happened to you. Please, come on in."

As Billy entered the front room of the Freemans' house, which was a nice two-story building that had probably cost a fortune because it was in Manhattan, Fred entered the room and greeted him enthusiastically.

"School was boring as usual," Fred told Billy. "But I think that Tamara missed you while you were gone."

But then Jacob interrupted and said, "Billy. Fred and I were just talking about inviting you to Lake Argyle. We're going to go fishing there two weeks from now, if the weather permits."

Before Billy could answer, the telephone rang. Jacob went to his study to answer the call, and Fred directed Billy to the dining room, where they would be out of earshot from Jacob, who did not know that Billy was Captain Marvel.

"They're still talking about you," Fred told Billy, pointing at the international section of the _New York Times_, which was on the dining room table.

When he saw the image of Captain Marvel holding up the water tower, Billy realized that even in poor areas of Thailand there was _somebody_ who had a cell phone camera and used it to photograph Captain Marvel. But, he noticed that the article did not mention that he had almost dropped the water tower.

"It wasn't as good as it sounds," Billy started to say. "I-"

But he cut himself off when he saw another article, which sent a terrible shiver of shock running through his body. It was little more than a sidebar, but it said that fourteen young women had been found murdered in Bangkok. Without saying anything, Billy suddenly left the house so he could turn back into Captain Marvel.


	2. Chapter 2

In a dream, Mary Bromfield was a little girl again. She was holding a stuffed tiger doll, which she squeezed lovingly. The doll's voice box spoke in a cute, cartoonish-sounding growl.

"I am Tawky Tawny, Kiiiiiiiiing of the jungggle!" said the doll.

Little Mary hugged the doll and said, "I wish he could talk for real."

A little boy, who Mary never actually saw in the dream, or in any of her other dreams, said, "Of course he can talk. He's Tawky Tawny."

"I mean he should understand us, you sillyhead," Mary teased the unseen little boy.

Mary woke up, and soon let the dream slip away from her mind, ignoring it in favor of more important things. It was far from the first time that she dreamt of having parents other than the Bromfields, and a brother who was about her own age. A therapist had told her that because she was adopted and did not know who her birth parents were, her subconscious would naturally try to come up with ideas of what her previous life was like, and the dreams she had were not necessarily based on anything real.

Mary had often wondered about what her birth family had been like, but she didn't really need to know. Her life was good as it was now, and she already had plans for today. Since tomorrow was Halloween, she and her friends were going to compare costumes and prepare for the Halloween party that they were attending tomorrow night. Mary also had a test tomorrow, so she had a lot of studying to do today, and her favorite new TV show, which had just premiered a week ago, was on tonight. There were more important things in her life than a silly dream.

When Billy rang the doorbell at the Freemans' house, Fred answered the door. Fred looked momentarily confused when he saw that Billy was carrying a stuffed animal, along with a suitcase full of clothes, all of which were from Theo's former apartment, where Billy had lived briefly after Ebenezer kicked him out, before Theo had turned into Teth-Adam and battled Billy above the streets of New York.

Then Fred recognized the stuffed animal. "Tawky Tawny," he said.

"Yes," Billy answered as he closed the door behind him. "He's the only thing of Mary's that I still have. It still seems like this silly tiger doll is the connection I have to my lost twin sister."

"So, what happened in Bangkok," Fred asked, noticing Billy's disturbed expression.

"Mary wasn't there," Billy said gloomily. "But I had to go to the morgue and look at every corpse. I had to know if she was dead. I saw those faces. All those poor girls, the only thing they had left was hope. And now, all of that was taken away. They died because of my actions. It's obvious – the criminals were afraid of me and decided to shut down their enterprise, but they wouldn't leave any loose ends."

"But you've saved so many other victims of human trafficking," Fred said.

"Not these women," Billy said. "Maybe the wizard was right – perhaps I have been doing too much. What if being Captain Marvel is not so black-and-white after all?"

"Well, it's already happened, and there's nothing that can be done," answered Fred. "Right now, there is something more immediate: Your return to school. Tomorrow is Halloween, and it's also a Monday, so you've arrived just in time to go back to school."

Billy sighed, because he did not like the prospect of sitting in classrooms again after all that he had done as Captain Marvel. But he knew that he had to maintain his cover. He had seen the consequences of remaining Captain Marvel for too long, and he also knew that Billy Batson would be highly vulnerable if his identity was exposed.

They sat down at the dining room table, and Fred informed Billy that Jacob was in his study, and they could still talk freely.

"So," Fred asked. "Are you coming with us to Lake Argyle in two weeks, or is Captain Marvel too busy?"

"It would be good for maintaining my secret identity," Billy answered. "And sometimes Captain Marvel needs a rest, even if he does have the Stamina of Atlas."

As Fred drove him to school, Billy watched the buildings of New York City pass by. He was still uncomfortable in his mortal form. He was significantly shorter as Billy Batson, and everything seemed larger now that he was in his own body. At times, he felt helpless and vulnerable, knowing that he no longer had the powers of Achilles. Also, the feelings of fear and doubt that he normally had as Billy Batson were quite surprising after he had possessed the Courage of Achilles for so long.

Billy felt a sudden rush of fear when he heard a _pop_ underneath the car, and immediately, the vehicle became unsteady. Fred quickly pulled over to the side of the street, saying, "Flat tire."

"So, let's call AAA," Billy said with some awkwardness.

"With Captain Marvel in the car?" Fred asked jokingly. "Can't you just have him change the tire?"

"You know Captain Marvel can't-" Billy started to say, but then Fred cut him off.

"Just kidding," he said to Billy. "No need for Captain Marvel or AAA. I can change a tire myself."

They stepped out of the vehicle, and Billy helped Fred get the spare tire out of the trunk. As Fred worked on changing the tire, Billy stepped out onto the sidewalk, and noticed that he was on the same city block where Captain Marvel had made his first public appearance. And, not far from him, he saw a boy of about ten who was wearing a Captain Marvel costume for Halloween.

_The costume companies must really be working fast_, Billy thought. In a couple of weeks they had released Captain Marvel costumes in time for Halloween.

The ten-year-old walked up to Billy and asked him, "Do you live around here?"

"I go to the high school over there," Billy said, pointing in the direction of Binder High School.

"Have you met Captain Marvel?" the boy asked enthusiastically.

"Why would I have met Captain Marvel? Just because he gave a speech near my school doesn't mean I'd have seen him."

The boy looked disappointed for a moment, but then he perked up and said, "I hope he'll come back here sometime, so I stay here as much as I can so I can meet him and _maybe_, he can give me powers. He's _so _awesome. I'm Timmy Timberland, by the way."

"Billy Batson," Billy answered, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. This child idolized Captain Marvel, and had no idea that he was standing right in front of him. But, the child's dream was impossible. Captain Marvel did not grant powers – Shazam did – and Billy seriously doubted that Shazam would turn a ten-year-old into a superhero.

Then, a younger boy of about eight who was dressed as Black Adam ran up towards Timmy and yelled, "Shazam!"

Timmy produced a toy lightning bolt from his costume and waved it at the boy in the Black Adam costume, who jumped backwards, pretending to be struck by the Power of Zeus.

Billy immediately understood that they were acting out the end of his final battle with Black Adam, where he had thrown Black Adam into a building with Zeus's lightning, taking Adam's powers away, and removing his ability to speak so he could not turn back into his superpowered form. The word "Shazam" was associated with Black Adam because some people had claimed to hear him saying it at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but almost nobody knew that Captain Marvel also used it.

"Billy, this is my brother Adam," Timmy said in his usual enthusiastic tone.

"It's nice to meet you," Billy said to the little Black Adam. "I'm Billy. What's your real name?"

"Adam," answered the younger boy.

"I mean, your _real_ name."

"Adam."

"His name really _is_ Adam," Timmy said. "That's why he has to be Black Adam and I get to be Captain Marvel."

"That's not fair," Adam Timberland complained. "Why do _I _always have to be the bad guy? Next year I get to be Captain Marvel."

"No, you'll be Black Adam again."

"I don't have to be Black Adam just because my name is Adam."

"Yes you do,"

"Does not,"

"Does too,"

"Shazam!"

"Pow!"

Billy smiled, watching in amusement as the two brothers resolved their silly argument by throwing imaginary lightning bolts at each other. He rejoined Fred, who had finished changing the tire, and they got in the car and drove to Binder High School.

As Fred and Billy walked to school from the parking lot, they saw a group of their friends hanging out in front of the buildings. Three of Fred's friends, Mike, Sam, and Rachel, were there, along with Tamara and Lauren. Tamara had a special place in Billy's heart, as she was the only girl that he had ever seriously _liked_, and she had figured out that Billy was Captain Marvel before he had told her himself. Lauren was one of Tamara's best friends. She and Tamara's other friend, Jessica, probably knew that Billy was Captain Marvel.

"Hi, Fred! Hi, Billy!" Mike called out as Billy and Fred approached.

Everyone greeted Billy with friendly concern, as he had been gone for over a week, but it was only Tamara who seemed to really notice him more than she had noticed Fred. Tamara had become infatuated with Captain Marvel, but even before she was certain that Billy Batson and Captain Marvel were the same person, she had realized that her true feelings were actually for Billy.

If Billy wasn't Captain Marvel, he and Tamara probably would have gone out on a date last week, but instead, Billy was chasing criminals and saving people as Captain Marvel, while fruitlessly searching for his sister.

"We've missed you, Billy," Tamara said, with a look that showed _she_ really missed him. "Yes, you posted an update on your Facebook, but we still weren't sure you were coming back."

"I needed some time off after what happened to Theo," Billy said, using the lie that he had invented to cover his absence. Out of this group of teenagers, only Fred and Tamara knew for sure that Theo Templeton was actually Black Adam. The others thought that Theo was an innocent victim who had been severely injured during the battle between Captain Marvel and Black Adam. "What's been happening with you while I was gone?" Billy asked the others.

"Well, Jessica's busy preparing for the spelling bee, and you know how she can get when she's focused on something," Lauren said. "I don't understand why she enjoys spelling so much, but it's her thing, so we're all going to support her."

"There's a spelling bee?" Billy asked in a clueless tone.

"The General Motors Greater Metropolitan New York Regional High School Spelling Bee," Mike said.

"Do we have to hear that whole thing again?" Rachel complained, pressing a hand to her forehead.

"General Motors Greater Metropolitan-" Mike started to say, but Fred cut him off.

"We all know what it's called," Fred interjected smoothly. Now, let's move on to more serious subjects."

"Like Captain Marvel?" Sam suggested. "I can't wait for him to come back to our city."

"We're better off without him," Mike said. "Every time he fights Black Adam, innocent people get caught in the middle. And when he flies around the city saving people, he creates an impossible symbol that people worship and cannot live up to. How long before some idiot in a Captain Marvel costume tries to fight real crime and finds out that he isn't bulletproof? I heard that Marvel almost dropped a water tower on a bunch of innocent people in Thailand."

Billy didn't know what had made Mike hate Captain Marvel so much, but Mike's hatred of the superhero was clear from the tone of his voice. But Billy was saved from more Marvel-bashing when Jessica ran up to the group and joined them, her brown hair flying behind her in the wind.

"How do you spell 'procrastinator'?" she said, winking discreetly at Fred.

"Don't look at me," Lauren said. "I'm not the spelling whiz." Tamara nodded her agreement, saying that she didn't know how to spell the word either. While Jessica enjoyed precise academic subjects such as math and spelling, Lauren preferred the more practical and realistic areas of science and economics, and Tamara seemed to be quite interested in everything _except_ what she was taught in school.

"You know, I really should look that up someday," Fred answered, winking at Jessica.

Jessica smiled and said, "Maybe you would if you weren't one."

"A procrastina-_tor_ or a procrastina-_ter?_ I never could tell the difference, and I don't think I can describe myself with a word that I can't even spell."

As Jessica threw up her hands in mock exasperation and asked, "Does _nobody_ know how to spell that word?", Billy wondered how Fred was able to flirt with so many different girls without angering any of them. It was no secret that Lauren and Jessica both liked Fred, but Lauren did not seem to mind much when it was Jessica's "turn" with Fred, just as Jessica tolerated it when Lauren received Fred's attention.

"P-R-O-C-R-A-S-T-I-N-A-T-O-R" Sam said. Billy knew that Sam liked Jessica, but he also knew that Jessica had no interest in Sam, and he hoped that Sam would realize that someday.

Then, the eight teenagers walked into the school. Classes were dull as usual for Billy, who had never enjoyed school, because his uncle Ebenezer had placed so much pressure on him to succeed, which had the opposite effect of what was intended. Some of his teachers kindly welcomed him back, but his history teacher was so angry with him for having missed the end of World War II, skipping over into the Cold War Era, that Billy was glad he was not living in Soviet Russia and the teacher was not a high-ranking Communist Party member. Otherwise, Billy might have been looking forward to a one-way trip to Siberia.

Billy was glad when the school day was over. As he and Fred were riding home in Fred's car, Fred asked, "Is Captain Marvel coming back on Halloween?"

"No," Billy answered. "He'll wait a few days because Billy Batson also came back on Halloween. But he will return."


	3. Chapter 3

_Binder High School, Wednesday, November 2, 2011_

One thing that had not changed about high school was the bullies. Joe and Chris, two of the meanest boys on the football team, had forgotten about what Captain Marvel had done to scare them last month, because Shazam wanted to preserve Billy's identity and teach him a lesson that his powers should not help him in his regular life. However, Joe and Chris had still been affected subconsciously, so they no longer picked on Jane Abbot, a girl who had been disfigured in a horrific car accident when she was a child.

But, Joe and Chris still picked on Billy. As he was waiting in line at the cafeteria, Billy heard Chris say from behind him, "So, have you finally started living in foster care, Billy? It's good experience for you, as you'll be in government housing soon enough anyway."

Joe, who was standing next to Chris, laughed derisively.

"What _are_ you going to do with your life anyway?" Chris continued mockingly. You have no skills, no talents, no real success."

"Knock it off, Chris," Mike interjected. "Remember what I know."

Chris glared at Mike with a sullen expression of anger, but he said nothing more about Billy.

As Billy and Mike sat down with Fred, Tamara, and Rachel, Mike said, "Chris can be so predictable. That arrogant idiot thinks that the drinking was meant for "ordinary people", not football players, but he knows that I'm clever enough to get him busted, and a football suspension is the last thing he wants with the big rivalry game coming up so soon."

When Billy said nothing in response, Mike turned to Fred and asked him, "Are you sure you can handle basketball? You already play so many sports."

Fred who was the star athlete of Binder High School and one of its most socially popular students, smiled and said, "November is pretty slow for me. Most of the sports I play are in the spring."

Then he said, "Only two more days until the spelling bee. How exciting. And our school is hosting it."

Since Jessica was sitting with a group of students who were known for getting straight A's in English a, Mike joined Fred in making fun of the spelling bee. "Ah yes, the General Motors Greater-"

"Why does it have such a long name?" Rachel interjected, annoyed at the spelling bee's name, which she had obviously heard many times before.

"Because it's important enough," Mike said sarcastically. "It gathers some of the best teenage spellers from all over New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut. And it's even going to be on the radio."

In between bites of lasagna, Billy said, "The radio? What's so important about that? We're in the 21st Century. Who would want to listen to a spelling bee on the radio?"

Billy himself was not particularly enthusiastic about spelling bees. He'd never been particularly good at spelling, so he'd never wanted to participate in a spelling bee himself. The only time he had ever bothered to watch a spelling bee had been four years ago, when he was surfing the TV and he tuned to the Scripps National Spelling Bee near the end, and kept watching just long enough to see a homeschooled kid from California spell "Serrefine" correctly to win. One thing that annoyed Billy about higher-level spelling bees is that the words used were so obscure and complicated that they didn't matter in real life. He assumed that Lauren, who was sitting at another table with some friends from her Social Studies class, would agree, as would everyone at Billy's table.

"It's going to be on WHIZ," Mike answered. "They're an education-themed radio station, so I suppose that their audience would be interested in listening to high-schoolers try to spell words correctly. I don't understand _why_ people would want to listen to a spelling bee on the radio, but apparently, some people do."

"You can make fun of it if you want," Tamara said. "But this is really important to Jessica. I think all of us should go. Everyone here."

"Ok," Fred remarked breezily. "We could enjoy the spelling bee if we don't get bored. It can be kind of exciting to wonder whether the next student will spell their word correctly."

"I'll go too," Billy said. Mike and Rachel nodded reluctantly.

Tamara then said, a bit hesitantly, "I told Jessica that I would help set things up. Apparently, there isn't enough of a budget to get the school employees to work overtime and do everything themselves."

"I can help," Billy said, although he was more interested in pleasing Tamara than in facilitating the General Motors Greater Metropolitan New York Regional High School Spelling Bee.

"So will I," Fred added. Neither Mike nor Rachel made any move to help the spelling bee.

The conversation drifted away from the spelling bee, and focused more on popular music as the five teenagers finished their meals. After lunch, there was still some time before the start of the next class period. Mike and Fred were engaged in a heated discussion about professional football, arguing about whether the Green Bay Packers would finish the season undefeated. Rachel was texting, while Billy and Tamara were both reading.

Tamara's book was titled _Secret Prophecies of the Ancient World_ by Hugo E. Metternich. Its cover art showed elegant images of sphinxes, hieroglyphs, ziggurats, and pyramids that looked like they would have been more at home on the DVD box of a movie like _The Mummy _than on a book written by a brilliant professor of linguistics_._ The contrast with Billy's book was so strong that he was almost embarrassed. He was reading a book from the public library, which was about closed adoptions. The cover was so faded with age that the title was difficult to read. His book had lost its dust jacket long ago, and it had no art on the actual cover, only the barely readable title.

Apparently, Tamara could not read the title, as she asked, "Which book are you reading?"

"I'm reading about adoptions," Billy said, holding the book closer to Tamara so that she could read the title. "I've been wondering if Mary might not be so far away after all. What if she's been adopted by an ordinary American family?"

"Have you felt anything from her?" Tamara asked Billy.

"Felt anything? Why?" Billy asked.

"She's your twin, right?" Billy nodded, so Tamara continued and said, "Sometimes twins share a psychic connection, and if something happens to one twin, the other twin can also feel it. There are multiple documented cases of this, so I think it really can happen. I've even been reading about something kind of like it in here."

She flipped through _Secret Prophecies of the Ancient World _until she found what she was looking for. She turned the book around and showed it to Billy. "I'm talking about spiritual twins. It's what Metternich calls the concept, anyway. It's when two people are psychically connected like twins can be, but they have no relation to each other and they have never met. Here, it shows two different prophecies, one in India and one from the ancient Etruscans, and both of them have the same English translation, and were written at the same time, by two people who had no common language and had never met."

Billy looked at the page, which showed two different images, one of a wall in an ancient Indian temple, and another from the interior of an Etruscan tomb. As he read the explanatory text on the page, he said, "That's quite interesting. The two prophecies, which have the same exact meaning, were written within a year of each other. It does not seem like a coincidence."

"This whole book is quite fascinating," Tamara said to Billy. "The author seems to think that true prophecy is not intended to be visible for everyone to read, but is hidden so it is only accessible for those who know where to look. Did you know that he was the first person to translate the inscriptions on Teth-Adam's tomb?"

"No," Billy answered. "Although the name Hugo Metternich does sound vaguely familiar."

"One of the first lines that he translated was 'The true secrets of magic are written in tongues that no one understands.' Of course, the people who built this tomb believed that Teth-Adam was a superpowered champion of the gods, but apparently Metternich believed there was some truth to that and he let that one line guide his research. And he found something else from Teth-Adam's tomb."

Tamara flipped through the pages, turning to a photograph that was spread over several pages. "The Scroll of Shazam," she said triumphantly.

"The Scroll of-" Billy started to say, and then cut himself off right before he could send a lightning bolt crashing through the roof of the school. "What was that word?"

"Shazam," Tamara said, smiling at Billy, hinting at a secret that he and Fred understood, but Mike and Rachel did not. "At least, that's what people think the inscriptions on the outside of the scroll mean. But the inside – it's in a language that nobody understands today. Metternich seems to see roots of other ancient languages in these symbols, but even he couldn't translate them. I think only Captain Marvel could understand it."

"Captain Marvel?" Billy asked. "Why would he be able to read this?"

"He's spoken ten different languages in his recent travels. Maybe he's an omniglot."

"An – omniglot?"

"Someone who can speak any language. I think I made up that word. But anyway, here's the Scroll of Shazam."

Amused and pleased that Tamara had come up with a term to describe his unusual power to read and speak any language, Billy looked at the Scroll of Shazam. Tamara had turned the pages to the beginning of the photograph, and Billy saw that at the top of the scroll, there were seven straight lines in a neat row, although he had no idea what they meant. The main text of the scroll seemed to be split into three columns, each of which contained only a few words in each line. The letters were neat, logical combinations of straight lines and geometrically precise curves. While Billy could not understand the words when he wasn't Captain Marvel, he saw that it was a very logical language. For a moment, he considered asking to borrow the book and finding an unseen place to transform into Captain Marvel. Of course, he couldn't do that, because he could not afford to have divine lightning bolts visible anywhere around Binder High School.

He turned the pages, reading more of the scroll's image, and Tamara said, "If you like the book, it's pretty cheap on Amazon. I think it's worth it, but it's really popular now after Black Adam attacked the Teth-Adam exhibit, so everyone thinks that there is a connection. It probably won't be long until the book goes out of stock or they raise the price."

The buzzer rang, and all the students went off to their classes. After school, Billy stayed late because Fred had basketball practice and couldn't drive him home until the practice session was over. Without anything better to do, Billy sat in the stands with a few other people and watched. As always, he was impressed by Fred's athletic skill. He had often wished that he had the physical talent to be good at sports like Fred was, but that had changed after he had become Captain Marvel. Of course, Billy could never compete in any sport as Captain Marvel, because it would not be fair to the opposition.

The following day, Billy became Captain Marvel again, and spent much of the evening above the streets of New York City, saving people and stopping criminals. But he still felt like he hadn't done enough, because it seemed like he had given up on finding Mary. He did plan to resume his search for her soon, but he was still as far from finding her as he had been ten years ago.

The spelling bee was in the evening, and the parking lot of Binder High School contained many cars with license plates from New Jersey and Connecticut, as well as New York license plates. Over a hundred students from the Greater Metropolitan New York area were competing with three students from the Binder High School, including Jessica.

Inside the school, Billy stood on top of a ladder, adjusting the 'G' in the incredibly long name that stretched from one side of the school gym to the other. With these giant letters, General Motors apparently wanted to make it quite clear that they were sponsoring the spelling bee and supporting the worthy cause of education, but apparently they hadn't realized just how long the title was. Because Billy was so short in his own form, he had to stand on the highest usable rung.

The enormous 'G' wobbled as Billy reached up to adjust it, and for one frightening moment, Billy wondered if Captain Marvel's crimefighting career would be ended by an oversized letter G falling from an overly long name. He was high enough up that he was quite scared of falling off the ladder, although he was not normally afraid of heights.

He popped the letter back into place, but it still wobbled slightly. "I don't think I can do anything more," he said as he climbed down the ladder.

"It's okay," Tamara called out from where she and Lauren were setting up a snack bar. "Fred and I both tried, and the letter must be a defective product. Hopefully it will stay up."

To Billy's relief, everything else appeared to be done, except for a few things that other people were working on. Setting up the spelling bee was tiring for Billy when he did not possess the Stamina of Atlas, but he realized that it was good for him to do unpleasant physical tasks sometimes, so that he could have a little humility in his life, and remember that being Captain Marvel did not make him a god, just somebody who had the power of the gods when he needed it.

When the spelling bee started, a boy from White Plains, New York spelled "anticoagulant" wrong, and a girl from Newark seemed to get into a conundrum while trying to spell "conundrum", but she still got it right. Several more people were called to the podium, and then Jessica had her turn. She spelled "infatuation" correctly, and Billy could practically hear Fred trying not to laugh.

About three-quarters of the students had already spelled one word, and Billy was not really looking at the podium when the announcer called out, "Mary Bromfield."

It was only when the girl was asking about the definition of "omnipotent" that Billy looked at her, and recognized her instantly.

She was his long-lost sister, Mary Batson.


	4. Chapter 4

The sign dangling from Mary's neck listed her as Mary Bromfield, not Mary Batson, and said that she was from Manchester Regional High School in Haledon, New Jersey, but Billy instantly recognized that Mary was his missing twin sister. While she looked so much different now that she was sixteen, she still had the same blue eyes that she had when was six years old. Her facial features had changes as she matured, but Billy still recognized the old Mary Batson in Mary Bromfield's face. When she spelled "omnipotent" correctly, her face lit up with a smile that Billy could still remember from when they were little. He used to have that same smile, before his parents were murdered. Now, it was the inspiration for Captain Marvel's trademark grin. But Billy did not need to think about whether Mary's eyes and facial appearance matched what he remembered. With one look at her, he just _knew_ that they were twins. Maybe Tamara was right about twins sharing a psychic connection.

Mary returned to the stands in front of the podium. Her seat was on the opposite side of the room from where Billy was, and she gave no sign of noticing him, as she was probably too focused on spelling the word "omnipotent." Billy did not have any chance to talk to Mary during the spelling bee, so he waited, watching as over a hundred teenagers from throughout the Greater Metropolitan New York Area got eliminated from the bee one at a time when they misspelled words. Jessica was eliminated about halfway through the bee, and Mary made it to the final five, but got eliminated when she spelled antidisestablishmentarianism wrong.

Billy did not mention Mary to his friends, since he wanted to talk to her before telling anyone else that he had found her. Mary stayed to watch the final competition in the spelling bee, which went on so long that the loose 'G' of General Motors in the giant sign fell, making it the "eneral Motors Greater Metropolitan New York Regional High School Spelling Bee."

Finally, a speller from a high school in Queens won, so then Billy began the difficult task of trying to catch up with Mary before she returned to New Jersey.

"Antidisestablishmentarianism?" Mary exclaimed to a friend who presumably also attended Manchester Regional High School. "_Why_ did I have to get the longest word in the dictionary?"

"Mary Bromfield?" Billy asked hesitantly, afraid of giving the wrong impression to someone he had waited for throughout the last ten years of his life. He was sure she would remember _something_; he just didn't know how much she would recall.

"Yes?" Mary asked quizzically.

"I'm Billy Batson. I'm a student at this school, and – I'm your brother."

"My – brother?" Mary repeated. "Last time I checked, I didn't have any, but it's not completely impossible since I don't know—Oh, it's too unlikely. Sorry."

Mary started to leave, but Billy said, "Don't you remember anything? Are you _sure_ I'm not telling the truth?"

"No, I'm actually not sure," Mary said. She seemed to come to a spontaneous decision, and said, "Okay, I admit you're my _potential_ brother. Since you go to this school, do you know of any good places to eat around here? Spelling always makes me hungry for some reason."

Mary's friend declined to come along, and, a few minutes later, Billy and Mary were sitting at a table in a cheap but surprisingly good restaurant within easy walking distance of the school, waiting for cheeseburgers. The restaurant was open later than usual because of the spelling bee, and Billy saw some Binder School students he didn't know very well sitting around another table.

"So, how can you be so sure that I'm your long-lost twin sister?" Mary asked Billy.

"I recognized you, from when we were little. And, somehow, I just _knew_ it when you spelled your first word. Look at me. Do I seem familiar to you?"

"Well, I do see a bit of family resemblance. We have the same blue eyes, and some other similarities, but you could still have mistaken me for someone else. How long ago has it been since we allegedly last saw each other?"

"Ten years," Billy said. "October 2001. Our parents were going on an archaeological expedition to Egypt, and they wanted to take both of us, but I was too sick to go, so I stayed at the hospital and you went with them. They were murdered by their colleague Theo Templeton, and you disappeared. Until now, I had no idea what had happened to you."

This was certainly not what Billy had expected. He had never thought that he would run into Mary when he wasn't even looking, he had not expected that Mary would be living a peaceful life so close to home, and above all, he certainly did not expect that she wouldn't remember him.

"So who is this Theo Templeton?" Mary asked.

"He's Black Adam."

"Black Adam?" Mary exclaimed in a tone of disbelief. "You mean _the_ Black Adam?"

"Yes, but he's in a hospital right now, and he can't access his powers."

"So, Billy Batson, if you want me to believe that we're siblings you're taking quite a risk here." The food arrived, and Mary continued speaking as it was placed on the table. "I must admit that this story of yours is rather difficult to believe, as I don't think most people have a personal connection to Black Adam."

Despite Mary's apparent disbelief, Billy could tell that the idea of their parents having been murdered long ago by Black Adam did seem to disturb Mary more than she let on. As they started to eat, Billy said, "So, if you don't remember me, do you remember Tawky Tawny?"

Mary's eyes widened momentarily, and then she regained her composure, and said, apparently speaking to herself as much as to Billy, "Tawky Tawny was a popular toy when I was little. I think I might have had one, but there were plenty of Tawky Tawnies. It could be a total coincidence."

But Billy could tell that Mary had been affected by that, and she _did_ remember something about Tawky Tawny. But then, Fred approached the table, carrying a sandwich that he had just bought from the counter.

"Hi Billy, – Mary Bromfield?" Fred said, recognizing Mary as one of the top spellers from the bee.

"Yep, that's me," Mary said brightly

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Fred said.

"Oh no, not at all," said Mary. "Please, take a seat. Billy here is trying to convince me that I'm his long-lost sister."

Mary reached over to an adjacent empty table and grabbed a chair, but in haste she knocked over the saltshaker on their own table. She laughed nervously, and then Fred took out a napkin from the napkin holder and quickly wiped up the salt. He sat down in the chair that Mary offered him, and said, "You did well in the spelling bee. It must be frustrating to get beaten by the world's mightiest word."

Mary smiled and said, "Yes, it was really annoying. I don't even know what the heck antidisestablishmentarianism is. Does anyone know?"

"I could find out," Fred suggested, pulling an Internet-capable smartphone out of his pocket.

"No, you don't have to," Mary said with a laugh, putting a restraining hand on Fred's arm.

Fred put the phone back in his pocket. "Well, there are more important things than antidisestablishmentarianism. I've known Billy Batson since elementary school, and I know that he still remembers his twin sister. I do not think he would be mistaken."

While Billy was growing increasingly frustrated at being shut out of the conversation, he was grateful to Fred for interceding on his behalf.

Mary said, "I don't really remember my life before I was adopted by my parents – the Bromfields. It was probably something terrible so my mind repressed it. I've always been reluctant to find out." She then turned her attention to Fred, and asked him, "What do you think of your school?"

Mary and Fred launched into a rather animated discussion, which was mostly about the various sports that Fred played, and the school Mary attended, which she seemed to be quite proud of. She was in the honors program, and for a moment Billy wondered if she really was his sister, because he was so terrible at school, he sometimes did not think it was possible for any sibling of his to be an honor student. Then, he remembered that much of his difficulty with school was because of Ebenezer's extremely strict and repressive attitude about school, which had made Billy hate it. While Mary and Fred tried to include Billy in their conversation, they seemed to be more interested in talking to each other, and he was feeling increasingly like a third wheel.

Mary's cell phone rang. She put in to her ear, said a few words, hung up, and then told the two boys, "I need to go. Sorry."

She looked at Fred as if she was expecting him to say something, but Billy said, "I still have Tawky Tawny. I've preserved him for you all these years. His voice box doesn't work anymore, but I think that if you saw him again, you'd remember."

"Okay," Mary said, still glancing at Fred out of the corner of her eye. "I'd like to meet this stuffed animal some time."

"But we won't be able to contact each other," Billy protested. "You'll go back to your school, I'll go back to mine – we need to exchange phone numbers if we're going to do this."

"Guys have asked for my number before," Mary muttered. "But they've never done it by claiming to be my brother."

"What was that?" Billy asked.

"Nothing," Mary said quickly. "I mean – I'll give you my number."

Mary dispensed a napkin, retrieved a pen from her purse, and wrote a ten-digit number on the napkin. She gave the napkin to Billy, along with the pen. Billy then took a napkin from the dispenser, and wrote down his own number.

"So she really is your sister," Fred said to Billy as they were driving home.

"Yes, but she seemed to be paying more attention to you than to me," Billy answered.

"Don't blame her for it. Finding out that she has a brother she didn't even know about is a lot to process. When she acted like she was ignoring you, I think she just wasn't ready to talk about it. And, I think she likes me."

Billy had noticed the signs, but while he had often wondered what it would be like to meet Mary, he had never even considered that she and Fred might hit it off so well. "Are you sure?"

"No, but I'm almost certain." Fred answered with a smile.

"And do you like her?" Billy asked teasingly.

"She's your sister. How awkward would it be to admit that?" The tone of Fred's voice seemed to give a clear answer to Billy's question. Fred changed the subject and said, "So, how are you going to prove it to her?"

"I have Tawky Tawny, but I want some other evidence. Maybe I could try to find her adoption papers."

"Where would you look?"

"At the county clerk's office," Billy answered dryly.

"I mean, how will you get them? I don't think Billy Batson would have access, and Captain Marvel's powers don't exactly include thievery."

"I doubt that the Wisdom of Solomon would want me to break into a government building anyway. I'll just have to figure something out. But when we get home, I want to order a certain book from Amazon."

At school on November 7th, the following Monday, Billy was sitting next to Tamara in English class. The teacher looked around at the students, peering through her ever-present spectacles, saying, "Good writing takes time to develop, but a writer should also be capable of working quickly. So, our lesson plan says that we should have an essay assignment about _Hamlet_ that will be due just a week from today. In this next essay, you will work in pairs to compare and contrast your opinions."

There was a mixed, but mostly negative response from the students. While a few of them liked Shakespeare, students who appreciated Shakespeare's work usually were not in remedial English classes.

The teacher then said, "However, recent events have caused me to change my mind. Instead, I'd like you to write an analysis of the new essay that we read two weeks ago."

"The one about caterpillars?" a boy asked in disbelief.

"No, Mr. Hawkins," the English teacher said sternly. "We read that essay _three_ weeks ago. You obviously were not paying attention. In any case, your new assignment will be a 4-6 page paper comparing and contrasting your opinions on _Our New Achilles_, an essay about Captain Marvel. Go on, pick your partners."

Billy was relieved when Tamara chose him as a partner, as she was the only person in the class who knew that he was Captain Marvel. It was going to be strange enough, writing an essay about Captain Marvel, since he actually _was_ Captain Marvel. Billy had heard of _Our New Achilles_, but he had never read it. The essay was written by one of America's preeminent academic essayists, whose work was often featured in college and high school writing textbooks.

After the class, Billy and Tamara drifted away from the other students between classes, and Billy said, "When I picked this teacher, it was because a friend of mine who'd had her class said that she didn't assign personal essays. I was wrong."

Tamara smiled, and Billy's heart seemed to skip a beat. She looked so beautiful in that moment, and he knew that she was smiling at him, and him alone. _I don't have to be Captain Marvel all the time. Maybe I can be Billy Batson for real sometimes. And Billy Batson could-_

"Does that sound good? Billy?" Tamara asked.

Her voice jarred him back to reality, and he awkwardly said, "I'm sorry, I just blanked out for a second. What were you saying?"

"I was suggesting that we work on the essay tomorrow night."

"Sure," Billy answered immediately.

"Are you staying with the Freemans?"

"Yes," answered Billy.

"Maybe we could work on the essay at their house. I've been to a couple of parties there, so I know how to get there. What time is good for you?"

"How about eight?" Billy suggested. He realized immediately afterwards that he had thought of that time because Fred was going to the gym and Jacob had a bridge club then, so Billy and Tamara would be alone, as if they were on a date. But it was too late to change his mind, and if he and Tamara couldn't actually date, they could at least have this.

"That sounds good," Tamara said.

_Passaic County Clerk's Office_

The young bureaucrat did not look up from his work as he answered the new visitor. "I'm sorry, but the records you are asking for are not open to anyone without the proper authorization. Do you-" He cut himself off, and his eyes boggled in surprise, as he saw Captain Marvel standing across from him. "Er- I'm sorry, Captain Marvel, but even superheroes need permission to look into government archives. You could talk to my boss, but she's at a meeting and probably won't be back until tomorrow. Would you like to make an appointment?"

"I don't think your boss would like it if Captain Marvel endorsed her opponent. I don't wish any harm to the department, there's just something I need to know."

"I'm sorry, Cap, but I still can't let you in. My boss would be very angry at me if I gave you access without her permission."

"Then she doesn't have to know," Billy said, feeling his voice echo in the bureaucrat's mind. The Wisdom of Solomon told him that he was using hypnosis, one of his many powers.

"That's a great idea!" the clerk said brightly. "Nobody has to know you accessed the records."

Billy easily found what he was looking for with the computerized catalog system, and then searched through the archives until he discovered Mary Bromfield's adoption papers. On the surface, they appeared legitimate and gave him no useful information. But when he looked more closely, the Wisdom of Solomon enabled him to notice several slight imperfections, indicating that the papers had been forged. And there one signature that stood out from the others: _Sarah Primm_.

"Do you mind if I take this?" Billy asked the still-partially-hypnotized clerk.

"Sure. Go right ahead."

It was not difficult to find Sarah Primm's address. She ran a cleaning business out of her home. Her business was called "Primm and Proper", and it had many clients among the affluent families of the Haledon area. This time, Billy went in as himself, not Captain Marvel.

When Billy rang the doorbell, a kind-looking middle-aged woman welcomed him inside. She wore glasses, and her hair was tied up in a bun. She was wearing an apron, and looked like what Billy would expect of a cleaning lady.

"Please, come on in," she said. "Can I offer you some refreshment? Orange juice, maybe? Or iced tea?"

"Iced tea sounds good," Billy answered, sitting down at the kitchen table as the woman poured iced tea. Billy was surprised by the woman's friendliness, but then he remembered that he was in the suburbs, not the city.

"I'm Sarah Primm, of Primm and Proper, the cleaning service that will keep your home nice and shiny every week. What brings you here today?" Sarah said.

"I'm Billy Batson. I'm a little young to hire a cleaning service."

"Not necessarily," Sarah said in a welcoming tone as she sipped her iced tea and Billy did the same. "Your parents' house could need cleaning, or you might be living with other young people your age. But yes, I can tell you are not here to hire a cleaning service."

"I'm looking for someone named Mary Bromfield. Do you know her?"

"Mary? She's the daughter of some of my first clients. I've known her since she was a little girl. You wouldn't believe how fast they seem to grow up."

"How long have you known her, exactly?"

"About ten years. Her parents have always been satisfied with my work, so I come over their house every week."

"Do you know anything about this?" Billy asked, placing the adoption papers on the table. He knew that he was taking a risk, but Sarah did not seem dangerous at all, and Billy could always turn into Captain Marvel if he needed to.

Sarah looked at the papers. Her face flared with anger – and fear. Her friendly demeanor vanished as she said, "Whoever put my name on those papers must have forged my signature. If you've come to accuse me, you are not welcome here."

Surprised by Sarah's sudden coldness, Billy left the room, taking the adoption papers with him. He was sure that she knew _something_, but she obviously wouldn't tell him what it was. However, Sarah Primm did not appear to be mean, deceptive, or dangerous.

"It's so _confusing_," Mary said to her friend Vanessa, as they sat on the couch in the Bromfields' house, which was located in a nice neighborhood, in the borough of North Haledon, New Jersey. "I mean, I've always felt like I had a twin brother, but I never really believed it was possible. Do you think-"

Mary's cell phone rang, and she answered it, after showing Vanessa the caller ID.

"I have the adoption papers and Tawky Tawny," Billy said over the phone. "Can I show them to you?"

"Well, ok," Mary said. "Could you come over my house?"

"Are your adoptive parents at home? I think you should tell them yourself before they meet me."

"I agree," Mary answered. "But no, they're not at home." She gave Billy directions to her house, and he said he'd be there in about half an hour.

It took longer than expected for Billy to arrive. First, he had to find places where he could transform without being seen, which was not easy during the day. Also, he decided that he would cast a little spell on Tawky Tawny. Once Mary understood that they were siblings, he intended to tell her that he was Captain Marvel. He placed Tawky Tawny and the adoption papers in a box, which he carried to North Haledon as Captain Marvel.

Almost an hour after he had called Mary, Billy Batson walked up the Bromfields' steps in his own form, carrying the box with the adoption papers and Tawky Tawny. He rang the doorbell, and the door opened quickly. He stepped inside, grateful for suburban hospitality, and then something slammed into his forehead, causing the world to disappear before his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

When he regained consciousness, the first thing Billy noticed was that his head hurt. He had a terrible headache, unlike anything he had felt before. When he realized that being hit over the head hurt much worse than it did in the movies, Billy finally remembered what had happened. He remembered going to Mary's house, and then being hit over the head with something. He slowly opened his eyes, despite the pain in his head.

At first, he only saw darkness. Then, as his eyes adjusted to the dim illumination, he saw that he was in a dark basement, and he was sitting in a chair. Mary was in a chair next to him. She was tied to the chair, and a gag had been placed over her mouth. The cardboard box containing Tawky Tawny and the adoption papers had been shoved into a corner of the room. Two bearded men sat around a table in another part of the room. They were playing a card game, and the lantern they had placed on their table provided the only illumination in the room. They were speaking in Russian, and Billy quickly figured out that he and Mary had probably been kidnapped by the Russian mob. But they would be no match for Captain Marvel. He just had to had to say one word, and-

But no sound came forth when Billy tried to speak Shazam's name. That was when he noticed that he too, was bound and gagged. His headache seemed to fade away as sudden terror overwhelmed him. If he remained bound and gagged, he could not turn into Captain Marvel. And, these men could easily kill him. For the first time since he had met Shazam, he felt truly helpless. He frantically tried to remove his gag, but it would not budge. Mary shook her head as much as she could with her restraints, as if she was trying to tell him that it would not work.

"He's awake," the oldest (and largest) of the two Russian mobsters called out in English. Since Billy was not Captain Marvel now, he could not understand Russian, and he wondered why the thug was speaking English.

Then the two mobsters got up from their table, and the man who had spoken before said, "Billy Batson. Mary Bromfield. My name is Mikhail, and this is Steve."

He indicated the younger thug, who gave Billy and Mary a vicious glare, as if daring them to think he was weak just because he had an ordinary American name. Before Mikhail could say anything else, Billy heard footsteps approaching, and someone else entered the room. In the darkness, it took a few seconds for Billy to figure out who it was. But he recognized Sarah Primm, and from Mary's horrified expression, he could tell that she did, too.

"It's about time," Sarah said to the two men. "The hypnotist will be here any minute."

Sarah then turned to the two bound and gagged teenagers, and said, "I'm very sorry this had to happen to you. But soon, everything will be just fine."

Although Billy had never been great at reading other people's emotions, he did notice that Sarah seemed genuinely guilty about her involvement with the criminals. He just didn't understand _why_ she was involved in the first place. Sarah walked over to Billy and Mary. Despite Mikhail's suspicious glare, she gently removed Mary's gag, trying not to hurt her.

Leaning towards Mary so she could speak without Mikhail and Steve hearing everything, Sarah said, "I'm so sorry that I had to put you through this. It happened once before, when you were twelve, and everything turned out fine."

"Why are you doing this?" Mary asked pleadingly, still stunned that Sarah Primm could be one of the kidnappers.

"I believed in him, Mary. I wanted to help him find what he was looking for. But your parents got in the way, and he killed them. I should have stopped him then, but the one thing that I could not let him do was sell you into slavery. That is what his associates wanted, so I bought you from them, and these men helped me give you a good home. They created your adoption papers. But the deal was, they couldn't let you remember who you really were."

"I won't forget," Mary said stubbornly. "You know that."

"Oh, but you will," said an old man who was standing in the doorway. He had a white beard that flowed halfway down his chest, and his short hair was of the same snow-white color. He was thin, and he walked with a limp, but there was no mistaking the confidence and power that he carried himself with. He was dressed all in white. Combined with his pale skin, white hair, and white beard, this made him look like a ghostly spirit of death. Billy felt an involuntarily surge of terror when he saw this man. He knew that, without a doubt, this was the hypnotist Sarah was talking about. Even Sarah and the mobsters seemed to be afraid of the hypnotist, as they stepped away from him as he walked into the room, surveying it with his icy blue eyes.

"What is that?" he asked, pointing to the box containing Tawky Tawny and the adoption papers.

"I do not know," Mikhail said. "The boy had it with him when we knocked him out."

"Open it."

With slightly unsteady fingers, Mikhail ripped the box open, and tossed Tawky Tawny aside. The stuffed tiger landed pitifully at Mary's feet. She glanced at it, and recognition dawned in her eyes. She turned towards Billy, and needed no words to express that now, she knew they were brother and sister. He remembered the spell that he had placed on Tawky Tawny, but even if he could activate the spell, there was no way that a talking tiger could save his life now.

Mikhail took the adoption papers out of the box, and placed them next to the lantern so that the hypnotist could read them. "That's all there is, Nikolai."

"I thought I sensed something in there. I must have been mistaken." The old hypnotist turned to the two teenagers, and said, "I am Nikolai Sidorov. I will make you forget about everything that had happened here. That way, I can let you-"

Nikolai paused, and a surprised expression appeared on his face. He then turned to Mikhail and said, "Kill the boy."

"What! No!" Mary yelled.

Sarah Primm placed a restraining hand on Nikolai's arm. "Why does he have to die? Killing was never part of the plan."

"The boy cannot be hypnotized," Nikolai said. "Therefore, he must die."

"You can't do this," Sarah pleaded, as an expression of determination crossed her face. "I won't allow it."

Nikolai laughed. "_You_ won't allow it?"

Nikolai barked a command in Russian. In a single swift motion, Mikhail drew a gun from beneath his coat and shot Sarah Primm in the head. The gunshot sounded deafening in the enclosed space. Mary screamed in horror, and Billy felt a cold, frightening shock spread through his body. While he had seen dead bodies, he had never actually watched someone die for real in his career as Captain Marvel. But it was so much worse as Billy Batson. It still seemed hard for his mind to accept that in one moment, Sarah Primm could be gone forever. His ears were still ringing from the noise of the gunshot, but he barely noticed.

"Mikhail," Nikolai said, deliberately speaking English in a frighteningly calm tone. "Don't delay, kill the boy."

Tawky Tawny moved slightly. Mikhail vaguely noticed that the toy seemed to be stirring. He walked towards Billy and Mary, who could remove their bonds, regardless of how desperately they struggled. Mikhail curiously picked up Tawky Tawny with his free hand. He jumped back and shouted something in Russian as the toy tiger suddenly sprang to life, leaping out of his hand, jumping through the air and landing in Mary's lap.

Tawky Tawny turned its head upwards to Mary, and said, in the same cute growl that his voice box had used, "Speak the word 'Shazam'."

"Shazam?" Mary said quizzically.

The ceiling exploded above her, causing dust and debris to rain down into the room. The sudden flash of light momentarily blinded Billy. When he could see again, the chair and Tawky Tawny had disappeared. Mary was still there, standing proud and unbound, but she was… _different_.

She was slightly taller than she normally was. Her face had a few differences, most notably that she had had an unusual expression of power and confidence, but Billy still recognized that she was Mary, his twin sister. Her ordinary clothes had been replaced by a feminine version of Captain Marvel's costume, which resembled a white dress that went down to her knees, and was emblazoned with the golden thunderbolt symbol of Shazam. Yet in her appearance, there were subtle signs of – their mother, Marilyn Batson, who had been murdered by Black Adam.

It took Billy a couple of seconds to realize this was actually happening. Of all the things he had thought might happen when he met Mary, this was certainly not one of them. Mary also did not realize it immediately, and took a moment to look down at her costume. Nikolai barked something in Russian, already starting to move toward the exit. As Mary stepped forward, the two thugs drew their guns. Mikhail fired a shot, but the bullet bounced off Mary's invulnerable form and struck the wall. The two men started to flee in terror, but Mary lifted them off the ground, holding them for a moment. Then she slammed their heads together, and they both fell unconscious to the floor. Mary walked over to Billy and removed his gag. She then saw that Nikolai had already left, and said, "I'll be right back."

"I'm coming with you. Shazam!" Billy cried.

A lightning bolt turned him into Captain Marvel, blasting another hole in the ceiling. Billy and Mary chased Nikolai as he fled from the basement, running up a stairway as fast as his legs could carry him. He stumbled and fell as he crossed the landing. Nikolai sprawled on the floor of the empty house that they were in, but before he could get up, Captain Marvel flew up through the stairway and grabbed him, holding him above the bare hardwood floor.

Billy was trying to decide whether to knock Nikolai out or carry him to a police station when he felt a sudden impact slamming into his mind. He recoiled, and dropped Nikolai. For a moment, he was stunned by the mental assault, but then he tapped into his own powers as the champion of the gods. With the Wisdom of Solomon, he reached into Nikolai's mind, and caught glimpses of the hypnotist's life. For the last three decades, he had been working for some major Russian mob boss, and he had been using his powers of hypnosis to make his enemies forget anything they could use against him.

Billy suddenly decided to use the hypnotist's own powers against him, and reached into Nikolai's mind, taking away all knowledge of Billy Batson and Mary Bromfield. Nikolai fell unconscious just as Mary entered the room.

"So, I'm really like you?" Mary asked Billy.

"Yes. By speaking one magic word, you can change between this form and your own. You have the power of the gods, just like I do."

"You're really Captain Marvel."

"Do I look like anyone else?"

Mary ignored that, and said, "Do I really change if I just say Shazam-"

There was a sudden crack of thunder, followed by a crashing noise as the lightning bolt ripped through the already-battered empty house, and Mary changed back into her mundane form. She said the magic word again, and another lightning bolt changed her back to her superpowered form.

"What are we going to do with them?" Mary asked, speaking of the unconscious thugs.

"That's going to be a little complicated," Billy said. "We'll call the police, and tell them that these men murdered Sarah Primm but we can't tell anyone that Mary Bromfield and Billy Batson were kidnapped. It would be too much of a coincidence if we were present at the same time that Captain Marvel and his new ally defeated these criminals. It would be better if people didn't find out that we were twins."

"Oh, about that," Mary said. "I already told a few people that you might be my brother, but I won't tell anyone that I'm a – superhero."

"And it would also be better if you didn't show yourself to the police yet. This incident was close to your home, and protecting your secret identity is vitally important. There are people out there who would not hesitate to kill you and anyone close to you if they found out who you were."

"I could turn into – whatever my superhero form is called – and they'd have no chance." But it sounded like Mary was just making an argument. She apparently did believe what Billy was saying.

"Not if they tried to kill you with a sniper rifle from a thousand yards away. That's something we must always be aware of – we are helpless in our ordinary forms, so we cannot allow the world to know who we really are."

"Ok," Mary said. "I'll go, and become myself again, and you can deal with the police."

"Normally, I won't tell you what to do like I did today," Billy explained carefully. "You have the Wisdom of Solomon and you'll be able to figure these things out on your own. But right now, preserving your identity is vitally important. Do you know of a quiet place where we could meet? I want to introduce you to someone who can explain all of this."

Mary suggested a local park, and told Billy where he could find her.

When Billy called the police, using a cell phone that he took from one of the thugs, the case was too big to be handled by the small North Haledon Police Department, so the Passaic County Sheriff's Department stepped in. Since Captain Marvel had called the police, the response time was much faster than it otherwise would have been. The sheriff, a pleasant Irish-American named Nathan Gallagher, showed up personally, along with a high-ranking deputy named Trevor Waldorf, and several other deputies. An ambulance also arrived, so that the unconscious criminals could receive medical treatment.

The police were quite excited to meet Captain Marvel, but they were also uncomfortable with having him at their crime scene. As the criminals were taken away, Sheriff Gallagher said, "These men allegedly work for someone named Ishmael Gregor. He's the biggest kingpin of the Russian mob in New York City. He supposedly controls half of the drugs, gambling, and prostitution in New York City, and his operations do occasionally branch out into Passaic County. No one has been able to catch him, because every witness who tries to testify against him or any of his top lieutenants suddenly claims to forget everything he or she knows. We think he uses intimidation to silence them."

"That's good to know," Captain Marvel said. "Best of luck catching your criminal. I don't think you'll have that problem anymore."

He shot off into the sky, and joined Mary, who was in her superhuman form, in a quiet area behind some trees, where Tawky Tawny was resting against the bole of a tree, now inert. Billy said, "The wizard we can't name lives in a place called the Rock of Eternity. We have the power to travel back and forth between the Rock and the regular world. You'll be able to do it yourself soon, but for now, I will help you."

They linked arms, and Billy used the Power of Zeus to take both of them up to the Rock of Eternity. When they arrived, a fascinated expression crossed Mary's face. She saw the wizard sitting in a golden throne with a giant pyramidal stone block hanging over his head; the red granite statues of the Seven Deadly Sins lined up on the left wall with eternal flames blazing at their feet; and the plethora of magical artifacts that were on shelves near Shazam.

"Welcome, Mary Bromfield," Shazam said. "Or should I say, Mary Batson. My name is Shazam, and I am the conduit for your powers, and Billy's."

"So it's true," Mary said. "Billy and I – we really are twins. Is that how I got my powers?"

"Yes," Shazam answered. "As twins, you are spiritually linked. When something happens to one of you, it touches the other. Normally, the effect would be minor or non-existent, but when I give one of you the power of the gods, it also passes to the other. When I chose Billy to be my champion, you also became connected to the same powers, but they remained dormant until you activated them by speaking my name. Now, what do you wish to know?"

"Well, for one thing, how did my old teddy come to life? Also, why did he disappear when I transformed, and come back when I became Mary Bromfield again?

"I put a spell on Tawky Tawny," said Billy. "I wanted him to come to life briefly so you'd know who I really am. But I had no idea that he would tell you to speak the wizard's name."

Shazam smiled and said, "Because of ancient restrictions and promises, I cannot intervene directly in your battles. However, the spell that Billy cast on Tawky Tawny worked through my power, so I was able to – shall we say, tinker with it? As for the doll's disappearance and reappearance, it did the same thing as your clothing: it entered a suspended state of existence until you turned back into your own form. Tawky Tawny is not truly alive, and the spell that animated him is over. Now he is just, as you would say, a "teddy" with a heroic history."

Mary seemed satisfied by the explanation, and said, "So, wizard-who-I-can't-name, what _are _my powers and where do they come from."

"You have the power of six elder beings of the ancient world known as gods. You possess the Wisdom of Solomon, the Strength of Hercules, the Stamina of Atlas, the Power of Zeus, the Courage of Achilles, and the Speed of Mercury."

"Then, does my power come from the Greek gods?" Mary asked Shazam.

"Yes. All of the gods who give power to you and Billy are part of the pantheon of gods connected with ancient Greece. There are other groups of gods, in places such as Scandinavia, Egypt, and India."

"Wait a minute," Mary said. "Solomon wasn't a Greek god. Achilles and Hercules – they were just demigods. Oh, and wasn't Mercury a Roman god?"

"Sometimes extraordinary mortals ascend to godhood after death. Solomon was one such person. I knew him myself when he was mortal. He certainly seemed worthy of godhood, and I was pleased to learn of his ascension." Shazam explained. "And as for the others, Achilles and Hercules both performed heroic deeds that enabled them to achieve full godhood. Mercury is the same as the Greek god Hermes. Each Greek god has two names, one as a Roman god, and another as a Greek god. Some prefer their Greek names, and others prefer their Roman names. In fact, Zeus is the only one of your gods who fits the classical definition of a Greek god. Atlas was a Titan, but after the Titans were vanquished, he chose to submit to the superior power of the Greek gods."

"So they're all real," Mary said with amazement. "The Greek gods, the Egyptian gods, the Titans-" Mary's eyes widened with a sudden realization, and she said, "Hold on, did you just say you KNEW Solomon when he was mortal? Didn't he die thousands of years ago?"

"I am five thousand years old," Shazam said, as easily and casually as Billy could say that he was sixteen.

Mary's eyes widened in surprise, and she asked, "Okay, um, how is that possible?"

"I am the Keeper of the Rock of Eternity," Shazam explained. "As long as it exists, I cannot die, and vice versa. The Rock and I have the magical equivalent of what your scientists call a symbiotic relationship. As long as I remain Keeper of this place, I cannot age, and I can even survive the loss of my physical body."

"So is that why you have the stone block hanging over your head?" Mary asked. "Because you know you can't die?"

"I can die," Shazam explained. "Just not by that piece of stone. I keep it there as a reminder that even I am not immortal. Mary, I believe that people in the mortal world are already starting to wonder where you are. Go back to the world, and remember to guard your secret carefully. Do not tell anyone what you are unless you are absolutely certain that they would not betray you, and that they have the strength to handle such a terrible burden. When you have your powers, the Wisdom of Solomon will give you the skill that you need to use them, so you do not need to be taught how to be a "superhero". Just remember – your thoughts and feelings are still your own. Do not make the mistake of assuming that you are always right just because you have the Wisdom of Solomon."

"Your two accomplices have already said that you told them to murder Sarah Primm. I can have them testify against you, and put you away for the rest of your miserable life." Deputy Waldorf said to Nikolai Sidorov. "But if you agree to testify against Ishmael Gregor, I can arrange for your charges to be dropped."

"That sounds good," Nikolai grunted. He was unable to hypnotize the cop, as people were not easily hypnotized if they held a position of authority over him. "I've always hated Gregor. I'd be happy to be bring him down."

An electronic device in Waldorf's ear sent a message to a machine in New York City, which relayed the audio of the conversation out loud.

"That _sukinsyn_," Ishmael Gregor snarled as he held a cigar between his teeth. "I always knew he wanted to betray me."

Gregor turned to another man who was in the room with him, and said, "Prepare my plane to Moscow. You understand what is going to happen."

The man nodded and left the room. Ishmael took a long puff on his cigar, leaning back in his chair. He hated the hypnotist, and was tired of relying upon him. Now he could do what he had always wanted to do.


	6. Chapter 6

_Tuesday, November 8__th__, 2011_

When Mary was in her room, reading about Captain Marvel and the Greek gods on the Internet, the doorbell rang. Initially she ignored it, but after she finished reading a rather boring scientific debate about what caused Captain Marvel to have powers, she went downstairs – and found herself face-to-face with a deputy sheriff.

"Um, hello," she said, surprised to see a Passaic County sheriff's deputy standing in front of her.

"Miss Bromfield?" the deputy asked.

"Mary Jillian Bromfield, that's me," Mary said, still surprised by the police officer's presence and afraid that he somehow knew she was a superhero.

"I'm Deputy Waldorf, from the sheriff's department. I'd like to ask you some questions about Ms. Sarah Primm."

Mary could hear her adoptive parents talking to other police officers, and she realized that the presence of these police officers had nothing to do with her. They were here to investigate Sarah Primm's murder. She said, "Okay, what do you want to know?"

"Did you know Sarah Primm?" Waldorf asked in an official-sounding tone.

"Yes, she came to our house every week to clean. But, I haven't seen her very much lately because she's been coming over while I'm at school, but she's been coming here since I was little."

"Did you know where she was yesterday, or have any idea of what she was going to do?"

"I don't think so," Mary said, knowing what was coming and preparing herself to act surprised.

"Ms. Primm was found murdered not far from your home. We know you didn't have anything to do with it, but we just need to find out whether you know anything that might be of importance to the investigation."

"I don't," Mary said, adopting an expression of surprise and grief. She was shaken and saddened by what had happened to Sarah Primm, who had always treated her well, and had been as much a part of her life as the walls of this house, but she wished that she didn't have to lie to the police officer. However, she understood how important it was that her identity remained hidden. "Do you have any idea who did it?"

"We think it was some Russian mobsters who Ms. Primm apparently had a connection to. Captain Marvel himself reported the murder."

"Captain Marvel?" Mary asked in a tone of feigned surprise. "He's been in North Haledon?"

"Just this once," said the police officer. "He's been to the suburbs a few times before, but he usually doesn't go this far from New York City, except when he was on his 'world tour' a couple weeks ago. Let me know if you have any information that could be of use to the investigation."

Waldorf gave Mary a card with his phone number on it, and then left, along with the other police officers. Nick and Nora Bromfield were saddened and surprised to hear of Sarah Primm's death. But Mary noticed something else about Nick: He seemed to be afraid. It was like he feared that something would be discovered. Mary felt a sudden, irrational anger. He obviously _knew_ something, but he had kept it from her for so long. She felt like she deserved an explanation.

"Dad, can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Sure," Nick said vaguely, speaking in a distracted tone that only confirmed Mary's suspicions.

Nora left to make a phone call, as Mary and Nick went into a small room that Nick used when he had to bring his work home with him, which happened fairly often, since he was the manager of a regional distribution center for a large chain of retail stores, and products were shipped at all hours of the day. They sat down across from each other, and Nick asked Mary, "What did you want to talk about?"

"Who was Sarah Primm?"

"She was the cleaning lady and a good friend of ours. You know that."

"That's not what I mean. I saw my adoption papers, and her name was there."

"Mary, I don't what's gotten into your head. Sarah Primm is not your birth mother."

"I know that!" Mary snapped, her voice suddenly rising in anger. "You knew something, and you've kept it from me all these years. _You_ made a deal with those people. Are you going to deny it?" Mary demanded when Nick said nothing. "Well, deny this!"

Mary angrily and forcefully placed the adoption papers on the desk.

"Mary, please let me explain," Nick pleaded.

"You don't have to explain anything," Mary said in a tone of cold anger. "I discovered everything for myself."

She started to leave the room, and Nick said, "Mary, please, stay here, we can talk about this."

"I'll come back. I just need some time to think this over." Just before she left the room, Mary said, "Just tell me one thing: Does Mom know?"

"She probably suspects, but no, she does not know for sure."

Mary was going to come back. Despite her current anger at the Bromfields, they still did love her as they would have loved a child who was truly their own, and they were the people who had raised her for the last ten years. But she needed some time to think about it. And she needed the Wisdom of Solomon.

_It's not a date,_ Billy silently told himself for what must have been at least the hundredth time today. But he still couldn't help tidying up pieces of junk that were lying around the Freemans' house, and checking his appearance in the mirror frequently. He was going to be alone with Tamara, and while he knew it wasn't _really_ a date, he still couldn't help being anxious and excited about it. He had turned into Captain Marvel earlier today to read _Secret Prophecies of the Ancient World_, which had arrived by UPS earlier that day. He'd read the Captain Marvel essay and taken notes about it, and he was trying to think of this as just an opportunity to work on an academic paper. But he just couldn't stop seeing it as a date.

When the doorbell rang, he jumped, but he quickly composed himself and walked over to the door. He opened it, and said, as casually as he could, "Come on in."

Tamara stepped inside, carrying her class notebook. "So, what do you think of the essay?" she asked as she and Billy sat down on the Freemans' couch.

"Sometimes I find it annoying because it's critical of Captain Marvel, but at other times, it reminds me that I am not perfect like some people think I am," Billy said. "As the author likes to point out, even Captain Marvel is not without weaknesses."

"You're thinking like Captain Marvel, not Billy Batson. Remember, this isn't _supposed _to be a personal essay. What is Billy Batson's analysis of the essay?"

"You know how I am with essays," Billy said. "What do you think of it?"

Tamara opened her notebook and removed a printout of the essay. She flipped through her notes until she found what she was looking for, and she read aloud, "The author suggests that Captain Marvel's greatest weakness would be anyone who is close to him."

"I think you should incorporate a quote there with MLA format," Billy said awkwardly, as he seemed to know where Tamara was going with this, and wanted to avoid having to make a decision.

Tamara ignored him and said, "But I believe that Captain Marvel's friends and loved ones are his greatest strength. My grandfather fought in World War II, and he told me that soldiers didn't really fight for their country or for their cause. They fought for each other. They fought to defend their comrades. People don't fight for abstractions, and if Captain Marvel is human, which I think he is, he needs something to fight for other than the general concept of defending New York City and his people. For every bank robber and mugger that he lifts off the streets, he needs to know that what he is doing will protect the people he cares about. Even if those close to him do not know who he is, even though they will never join him in the sky, they make him stronger. Because of them, Captain Marvel will always be stronger than Black Adam or anyone else who has powers, because he has something worth fighting for. His friends, his family – anyone he loves, they are not a weakness to him, they are his greatest strength."

As Tamara read this, she read from her notes at first, but then, she only glanced at the paper, as if she had rehearsed this many times, which Billy suspected was true. For a moment, he seriously considered kissing her right now, and trying to forget about all his obligations, and just trying to be human, and do what any normal person would do in his situation. _Maybe we still could see each other_, Billy thought. Captain Marvel has to stay away from her, but maybe Billy Batson doesn't…

Tamara looked at Billy expectantly, as if she was waiting for an answer. Time seemed to stand still, as Billy realized that Tamara had not really come here to work on the essay. Instead, she just using the essay as an excuse, so she could make an argument-

The doorbell rang, startling them both and cutting off Billy's train of thought. "I'll get that," Billy said in a resigned tone.

He walked to the door, and looked through the peephole, as he knew better than to let in strangers in New York at this time of day, even though the Freemans did live in a safe neighborhood. When he looked through the peephole, he saw Mary standing on the porch, looking distraught, as if something serious and disturbing was on her mind. He opened the door, and he heard Tamara walking up to him.

Mary stepped inside, and Billy said, "Tamara, this is my twin sister, Mary. She's – you know – like me. Mary, this is Tamara, a good friend of mine who knows that I am Captain Marvel."

"So, you're really a superhero like Billy?" Tamara asked Mary.

"Yeah," Mary said. "I can show you."

"No!" Billy exclaimed, not wanting any lightning bolts to strike the Freemans' house. But, he could tell that Mary wasn't really serious about transforming right here.

"How did you get your powers?" Tamara asked.

"It's because Billy and I are twins," Mary explained, and Billy thought he saw a momentary expression of disappointment appear on Tamara's face.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything important," Mary said.

_Yes, you are_, Billy wanted to say, frustrated at the interruption. But he said, "It's fine. You're always welcome here."

"I don't want to intrude," Mary said. "But could I talk to you for a minute? Maybe you could take me to see-"

"Don't say his name!" Billy exclaimed, wanting to preserve the integrity of the Freemans' ceiling.

"It's okay," Mary said with a smile. "I won't use his name when I don't want to transform."

"All right," Billy said. "Is that okay with you, Tamara?"

"Yes, I don't want to interfere with what you and Mary do for the world." Tamara said shyly, clearly upset that Billy was leaving.

Billy was disappointed to be leaving Tamara so soon after she had arrived, but he was also relieved. He was afraid to turn her down, but he was also afraid that he might not be able to keep to the decision that he had made after Tamara had been attacked by Black Adam. As he and Mary were about to leave, Mary noticed the book that was on a small table.

"_Secret Prophecies of the Ancient World?"_ Mary asked. "I've read some of that. Were you able to translate it?"

Tamara looked expectantly at Billy, and Billy said, "Yes, but I still don't understand the Scroll of – he-who-can't-be-named-"

"Maybe we should just call it the Scroll," Tamara suggested helpfully.

"Okay," Billy said. "The Scroll is still mostly gibberish even though I can read the words. It's just a bunch of random sentences, some of which have appeared in famous literature. But I can't make any real meaning out of it. However, there is one prophecy that caught my eye. It said, on the day of the six ones, the Chosen of Hell shall rise. Something sounded familiar about that, but I couldn't quite figure it out."

"The day of the six ones?" Tamara said. "That's Friday."

"What do you mean?" Mary asked.

"You know, 11-11-11?" Tamara said. "That's three days from now. So many commercial things are coming out then. The Elder Scrolls V. The DROID RAZR. But some people think it has mystical connotations. The date in international format is composed of six ones, just like what the prophecy says."

"So, hell and demons – they're actually real?" Mary asked.

"Yes, they are," Billy said. "I think I'll have to watch out for that on Friday."

Mary picked up the book, and said, "Can we take it with us?"

"Sure," Billy answered as they left the room, leaving Tamara alone at the Freemans'.

As they were walking away from the house, Mary said, "You know, she's a part of our world whether you like it or not."

"Who?" Billy asked, although he knew exactly what Mary was talking about.

"Tamara, of course," Mary said in a teasing tone. "She knows your secret, and I can tell in five minutes that you two like each other. If I can figure it out, then so can others."

"You're talking like – that would reveal who I am? How?"

"If I know anything about high school, I know that it's full of gossiping, hormonal teenagers, and I think it's the same in New York City as it is in Haledon. If people see that you two like each other, but you aren't dating and there's no one else in the way, they'll start to wonder why."

"What does that have to do with my secret?"

Mary spread her hands in a hopeless gesture. "Don't you understand, Billy? Superheroes always try to stay away from the humans they love. It's as old as comic books."

"My life is not a comic book!" Billy exclaimed. "And Tamara is not a two-dimensional cartoon! She's a real person, and people are not going to figure out that I'm Captain Marvel just because I won't go out with Tamara."

"No," Mary said. "But if they start to suspect your true identity, this may give them reason to believe that you are a superhero. Teenagers might expect that you would do hold back from a relationship if you were Captain Marvel."

Without the Wisdom of Solomon, Billy could not come up with a logical argument against that, so he said nothing more on the topic.

Billy and Mary arrived at an empty playground, and before they transformed, Billy said, "Put the book down somewhere. One of the first things you learn about being a divine champion is that anything you are holding when you transform will be kept in a state of suspended existence until you change back."

Mary placed the book at the bottom of a plastic slide, and then she and Billy both spoke the magic word simultaneously.

"Shazam!"

The twin lightning bolts came down from the sky, transforming both of them into their superpowered forms.

"Before we talk to the wizard, I do want to glance at the book," Mary said.

She picked up the book, and turned the pages to find the Scroll of Shazam. It was night, and although there was not enough light for an ordinary human to read by, Mary could see very well in the dark with the enhanced senses granted by the Wisdom of Solomon. She read through the Scroll of Shazam from the photograph in the book, and said, "You're reading it all wrong."

"How?" Billy asked.

"You didn't use the key," Mary explained.

"Key? What key?"

Mary sighed as if she was trying to explain something to an idiot, even though Billy did have super-intelligence as Captain Marvel. "It's the seven vertical bars on top."

"That's an Atlantean number seven," Billy said without thinking.

"Yes, I know," Mary answered. "In Atlantean numerals, a vertical line is one, a horizontal line is ten, a horizontal and vertical line intersecting is a hundred, two vertical lines intersecting a horizontal line is a thousand… well, you get the idea. Anyway, when I saw that number, I thought, what if you are supposed to read every seventh line. The individual lines in each column are too short to really make sense, but if you look at the line seven lines after a particular line, it all makes sense."

"So, what's in there?" Billy asked.

"Literary quotes, mostly. Solomon is telling me that this scroll was written by someone who was in a trance, and was just writing down whatever came to them. Apparently, the easiest prophecy to make in that way is a literary prophecy. A prediction of something that will be written, or that already has been written. But really, it predicts what will be _read_. Something that will be read by millions, possibly billions."

Billy, who vaguely understood the concept through his own powers, asked, "So, with a literary prophecy, could someone have predicted the end of _Harry Potter_ before the last book came out?"

"Theoretically, yes," Mary answered. "But they'd only be able to predict a few lines. Anyway, most of these prophecies seem to be from famous literature."

"Which books?" Billy asked.

"Half of them seem to be from the Bible," Mary said. "Which makes sense because more people read that than anything else. Others are from Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoy, and other famous writers. Here, look at it."

Billy read aloud, starting with the first line in the left column and skipping to every seventh line, using the Wisdom of Solomon to translate the Atlantean text. "It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us;"

He stopped reading when he recognized it as the beginning of Dickens' _A Tale of Two Cities_. _It would have been nice to have the Wisdom of Solomon with me in English classes_. But then, they were interrupted when the crack of gunshots echoed in the distance. Billy put the book down, and both superheroes took off into the sky.


	7. Chapter 7

"I'll be right back," Captain Marvel said when he heard the gunshots.

"What do you mean?" demanded Mary, who was still in her superpowered form. "I'm coming with you."

They both took off into the sky, flying towards the sound of the gunshots.

"They wouldn't expect us to be here, in New York City, so far from the scene of the crime," Steve said to Mikhail and Nikolai as the three mobsters sat around a card table that had been crammed into the small garage of their safehouse. All three of them had agreed to testify against Ishmael Gregor, although Mikhail and Steve had been reluctant to testify, until Nikolai had touched their minds. They would be safe here, or so they thought.

As Mikhail laid a full house on the table, the sound of gunfire suddenly filled the air, followed by the screams of wounded police officers. The three witnesses quickly ran to the car that was parked in the garage. Steve pressed a button on the wall that activated the garage door, and Mikhail quickly got into the passenger seat. The garage door had been designed to open faster than an ordinary garage door, but it still was agonizingly slow.

Nikolai and Steve got inside the car as they heard footsteps approaching from inside the house. As Mikhail backed out of the garage, two men burst into the garage and started shooting, but the three witnesses escaped before any of them were hit.

As he drove away from the safehouse, Mikhail saw two cars moving closer in the rear-view mirror. He slammed his foot on the accelerator as a man in one of the approaching cars opened fire with a submachine gun. Bullets slammed into the rear of the witnesses' car as Mikhail desperately swerved to avoid the gunfire.

With the Speed of Mercury, Billy and Mary flew towards the scene. They saw a Buick with several bullet holes fleeing from two identical black Hondas. One of the Hondas cut into the oncoming lane, and swerved around a taxi, speeding up to pass the Buick, while the other Honda stayed behind it. Seeing the second Honda about to pass by them on the left, the witnesses quickly swerved to make a right turn. But they did not need to. Billy swooped down from the sky like a meteor and lifted the second Honda off the ground, holding it in the air. Mary grabbed the first Honda, tossing it through the windows of a closed shop.

Unbeknownst to the two superheroes, there was a third Honda. As the witnesses swerved right and skidded onto a street that was at a right angle to the street they had been driving on, Mikhail regained control of their car just long enough to see headlights blazing through the darkness in front of him. Despite the blinding glare, he swerved to the right just as bullets tore through the space where he would have been if he had kept going.

Mikhail's car plowed into a newspaper stand, and its occupants were thrown back against their seats. The third Honda came to a stop on the other side of the street, and two men with submachine guns rushed out of it, aiming their weapons at the Buick.

As Billy held his Honda off the ground, a gun barrel poked out of a window. He punched it, causing it to bend, while still holding onto the car with one hand. Suddenly, the car felt heavy, which was unusual for Captain Marvel, who was normally able to easily lift up cars with one hand. Just then, he heard the sound of gunfire as the occupants of the third Honda opened fire on the witnesses. Startled by the gunfire and his sudden lack of strength, and needing to get to the witnesses, Billy dropped the car, which landed on the street with a loud _crash_. Its suspension collapsed and one tire was crushed, so it could not drive, even though it had landed upright.

"Don't go anywhere," Billy said to the assassins who were inside the car. He hoped they would be scared enough not to disobey someone who had just dropped a car that they were inside of.

Mary glided through the air, approaching the little gift shop that she had just thrown the second Honda into. "I hope they have insurance," she whispered to herself when she saw the damage she had inflicted on the windows and the displays at the front of the store.

She heard the shooting, and then flew towards it, shouting at the criminals trapped in the overturned car. "STAY HERE!"

As Billy zoomed towards the two gunmen, he knew that he didn't have time to reach them before they fired. He _wasn't_ faster than a speeding bullet, and if they fired at the Buick, no one inside it would survive. Without thinking, he pointed his hands at the two gunmen, and a yellow lightning bolt burst from each of his hands. The lightning bolts struck the two men, knocking them unconscious before they could shoot. The driver of the third vehicle, who remained inside, threw up his hands in a terrified gesture of surrender.

Billy looked down at his hands in surprise. "I never knew I could do that," he muttered.

As Billy waited for the police to arrive, he was eager to return to Tamara, but he was also afraid. He was afraid to break her heart, but he was also afraid that he would make a decision that could put her in danger. Thinking about this was easier when he was Captain Marvel, but his powers did not really change the emotions that he felt as Billy Batson.

When the police finally arrived, they arrested the hitmen and took the three witnesses back into protective custody. A police captain said to Billy and Mary, "The targets agreed to testify against a mob kingpin named Ishmael Gregor. He sent these assassins after them."

"Ishmael Gregor," Billy said. "I've heard of him. Tell me more."

"He's the biggest Russian Mafia kingpin in New York," the cop said. "He controls half of all crime in the city. We have a warrant for his arrest, but he got on a plane, and he's probably halfway to Moscow by now."

"Do you need anything from the North Pole, Captain?" Billy asked cheerfully.

"Uh, no. Why?" the policeman said in confusion.

"I'm taking a shortcut."

Mary opened her mouth to speak, but then shook her head in frustration as Billy shot up into the sky.

After changing back into her own body, Mary rang the Freemans' doorbell. Tamara let Mary in, and listened attentively as Mary explained everything that had happened. Tamara seemed to agree with and understand what Billy had to do, but she still looked disappointed.

"What is it like, being two people at once?" Tamara asked.

"I'm kind of new to that," Mary answered. "You should try talking to Billy."

"He always seems so distant. He won't let me in, because he thinks he's protecting me. He always talks to Fred, but he rarely comes to me, even though I also know his secret. Oh, I wish I could understand him," Tamara said with a sigh.

"I've been apart from him for ten years," Mary answered. "But he's my twin brother. I feel like I've known him all my life. And if I know anything about Billy, it's that whatever his reasons are for pushing you away, he believes he's doing the right thing."

"If only he understood what's it's like-" Tamara said in a dreamy whisper, looking away from Mary and speaking more to herself.

The doorbell rang, and a male voice said, "It's me, Fred. Am I interrupting anything?"

"Oh no, of course not," Tamara said, noticing that Mary was trying to stop herself from smiling. "You can let yourself in."

Fred came through the door. He was not surprised to see Tamara, and he said, "Hi, Tamara. Where's- Mary?" His eyes widened in surprise when he saw that Mary was in the living room.

"Billy went to Russia," Mary said, as casually as she might announce that he had gone to the 7-11 to pick up an evening snack.

It was an ordinary Wednesday morning at an ordinary New York City police station, with people reporting crimes, suspects getting arrested or released – and Captain Marvel dropping out of the sky, dragging a screaming Russian mob boss with him.

When Captain Marvel deposited Ishmael Gregor on the steps of the police station, uniformed officers swarmed around the crime boss, quickly putting him in handcuffs and dragging him inside.

"Even _you_ must have a weakness!" Ishmael screamed at Captain Marvel as he was dragged into the police station. "One day, somebody will break you!"

"Have a nice day," Captain Marvel called out to the police officers as he left.

Billy flew to the Freemans' house and turned back into himself at a quiet spot in the neighborhood, and then walked over to the house, and realized that he had been ignoring the time when he was Captain Marvel. Fred had already left for school. Billy took public transportation, and arrived at school in time for third period.

After fourth period, Billy was on his way to the cafeteria to eat lunch, when Tamara ran into him in a corridor. She grabbed in his arm as discreetly as she could, and dragged him out of earshot of the other students. "What are you _doing_ here?" she said in a loud, angry whisper.

"I go to school here," Billy said. He could tell that Tamara was angry with him for not coming back last night, and he braced himself for what was coming. This was one of many moments in his mundane life when he wished that he had the Courage of Achilles.

"That's not what I mean!" Tamara said fiercely, fighting to keep her voice down. "You go flying halfway around the world to chase after a Russian crime boss without even letting me know where you are, Fred asks me to help cover for you, and then you have the nerve to come back to school?"

"What do you mean?" Billy asked, although he thought that he knew what Tamara was getting at. He'd figured it out himself during a particularly boring lecture on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"People are _already_ talking about what you did to that crime boss. You could hardly have chosen a more public way to bring him in. And now they will know that Billy Batson missed the beginning of the school day, at the same time that Captain Marvel was showing off how he could catch any criminal he wanted!"

"I'm sorry, Tamara," Billy said. "I know this isn't easy for you."

While he had been flying across the world, Billy had plenty of time to think about how difficult it could be for Tamara to fulfill the role of Captain Marvel's not-girlfriend. But, Ishmael Gregor's terrified screams had prevented Billy from deciding on a definite course of action. So he said, "I'll make it up to you. When do you want to work on the essay?"

Tamara said, as they walked in the general direction of the cafeteria, no longer talking about Billy's secret identity, "You know that charity I volunteered for? The one that helps poor and disadvantaged orphans?"

"You mean the one that emphasizes helping them learn to eventually support themselves and become productive members of society?"

"Yes," Tamara said with a nod. "They're having a big fundraiser on Friday, because it's 11-11-11. I didn't find out until this morning, because they didn't have my current contact information. I have to help them prepare for the fundraiser, so I can't work on the paper until the weekend."

"I'm sorry," Billy said. "I promised Fred and his grandfather that I'd go fishing with them this weekend unless the weather is bad. The essay is due on Monday, so we'll have to communicate by email."

Tamara nodded in agreement, but Billy could see that she was still upset with him, so he said, in increasing desperation. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have just left you there. I'll do something to make up for this, I promise."

"Like what?" Tamara asked.

"A movie?" Billy suggested.

"You're going to make a movie?" Tamara said, pretending to mock what Billy had said. But he could see by her expression that she was pleased. He knew he had made a mistake, but it was too late to change his mind.

Right after sunset on Thursday, Billy and Mary were standing on top of the Hearst Building, where Billy's battle with Black Adam had ended.

"Do you know what they're saying about me?" Mary exclaimed in exasperation as she and Billy looked out at the lights of New York City. "They're saying that I'm your _sidekick_. They're talking about my costume more than my powers. It seems that everyone is either saying that my costume covers too much or too little. They didn't say that about your costume when you started flying around the city. And they have _no idea_ that we're siblings. They're even saying – Oh, I feel like flying in front of those stupid reporters and telling them-"

"Ok, Mary, slow down," Billy said frantically. "Have they come up with a name for you yet?"

"Yes, they've come up with several," Mary said angrily. "Miss Marvel. Lady Marvel. Thunder Girl. The Flying Woman. Hardly any of these names are gender-neutral, and it seems that half of them are about you as much as they are about me. Because you came first, and you're, you know, male, the media just doesn't seem to recognize that Shazam-"

A flash of lightning lit up the night sky, changing Mary back into her own form. "Don't say his name," Billy said calmly, which seemed to irritate Mary even more. She spoke the magic word again, with much anger and frustration, but it still worked.

"Nobody seems to understand that the wizard split his power equally between us," Mary finished after she was back in her superpowered form. "He did, didn't he?"

"He did give us the same powers," Billy confirmed. "But I think we should go talk to him now, like we were planning to do on Tuesday."

Mary agreed, and Billy reached out to help her teleport to the Rock of Eternity, but she pushed his arm away, insisting on learning to do it herself.

"Welcome back," Shazam said after Billy and Mary had arrived. "Keep away from the Sins," he reminded Mary as she looked too closely at the statues on the left, unconsciously moving closer to them.

"Sorry," Mary said, turning to face Shazam. "What _do_ you know about where I come from?"

"It was not easy to find out," Shazam answered, as Billy remained in the background. "When Black Adam invaded this place, he programmed the Historama not to find out where you were. Once I knew, I was able to use the Historama to learn how you came to North Haledon."

"The Historama?" Mary asked.

Shazam picked up the large bluish crystal ball that was on a pedestal next to his throne. "This is the Historama. It can see into the present and the past. It can even catch glimpses of possible futures, if the user is skilled enough."

"Tell me," Mary said.

"Long ago, my daughter corrupted Teth-Adam, the previous champion of the gods, who was a prince of Kahndaq, a country that is now ruled by a dictator named Muzzaf Amadin."

"Wait a minute," Mary said. "You have a _daughter?"_

It was clearly surprising for Mary to learn that someone as mysterious and otherworldly as Shazam could actually have something as ordinary as a biological child, but Shazam did not seem to care about her reaction. He said, "Long ago, the gods were engaged in a great war with the forces of Hell, a war which devastated much of the world, including the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. When neither side could claim victory, they decided to negotiate peace. This peace treaty would establish the laws that prevent gods and demons from interfering directly in the mortal world."

"Neither side wished to negotiate directly, so the gods sent me as an emissary. The demons said that they would do the same, but they lied. They sent a demon in human form – Lilith, who was older than humanity itself. I did not object, because without a peace treaty, the war would continue, and thousands of innocent human beings would get caught in the middle. So Lilith and I negotiated the treaty. To seal the agreement, I suggested a magically binding blood oath, but Lilith wanted something a little more – personal."

For the first time since Billy had met him, Shazam actually seemed embarrassed. There had been times when he had appeared regretful, but now, he was actually _embarrassed_, despite the fact that he was five thousand years old, and probably the most powerful man in the entire world.

Shazam continued, saying, "I did not want to agree, but I knew that it would be selfish to put my own personal preferences above the needs of countless human beings who would suffer and die if the war was to continue. That was how my daughter was born. Her name is Blaze, although, if I am not mistaken, she prefers to be called Lady Blaze, at least when she is in Hell. She is half-demon, but her human side enables her to cross into this world."

"She corrupted my previous champion, Teth-Adam, who became a vicious tyrant in Kahndaq, committing horrific acts of cruelty and murder in the name of a misguided love for his people. I was forced to imprison his soul and his powers in a golden scarab, but he was reincarnated in the body of Theo Templeton, who killed your birth parents to take the scarab for himself. He became Black Adam, and he is now in a hospital, stuck in his mortal form and unable to speak. He wants to kill Captain Marvel and retake control of Kahndaq, but he is no longer a threat."

"Mary, you were right to go back to the Bromfields last Tuesday night, despite your anger towards them. They wanted a child of their own, but they could not conceive one naturally. They tried to adopt, but Nick had a misdemeanor conviction for battery when he was in college, and although he had reformed, and the fight he participated in was a spontaneous mistake, the adoption agencies still feared that he could be potentially abusive."

"My dad?" Mary interrupted. "He would never-"

"You know that, Mary, and so do I," Shazam said soothingly. "But the adoption agencies did not know that. So your father arranged an illegal adoption, knowing that a child was the one thing that would truly make your mother happy. You must not judge the Nick and Nora Bromfield too harshly. They genuinely loved you, and still do. If they tried to stop you from learning who your birth parents were, it was because they were afraid of losing you."

"You're right," Mary said. Her voice sounded unusually subdued, and tears glimmered in her eyes. "Is it all right if I leave now?"

"It is," Shazam said, and Mary disappeared.

Billy considered going with Mary, but the Wisdom of Solomon told him that she needed some time to herself, and he wanted to talk to Shazam about something.

"When Mary and I stopped the hitmen last Tuesday, something happened with my powers. For a moment, the Strength of Hercules didn't completely work."

"Even the gods are not infinitely powerful," Shazam said. "And they gave me a finite amount of power to share with my champions. Once Mary accessed her powers, your own powers became half as strong as they were before. Unless I take Mary's powers away, the power passed down to you by the gods will continue to be split evenly between you, even if only one of you is currently transformed. And speaking of your powers, Billy, it has come to my attention that you have been using hypnosis. That power is part of the Wisdom of Solomon, but it is one that you must be very careful with. The ability to influence other people's minds should not be used lightly, and it is often tempting to solve problems with hypnosis. However, I do not disapprove of what you have already done with it."

"I'll be careful," Billy promised. "And there's one more thing I wanted to talk about."

"What is it?" asked Shazam.

"In Teth-Adam's tomb, they found a scroll with your name written on it. Is that really yours?"

"In a way, it is," Shazam answered. "When Teth-Adam was my champion, I cast a spell to channel prophecies through pure writing. The subject enters a trancelike state and writes down whatever comes to them, but I cannot cast it on myself, and the minds of ordinary mortals rarely recover from such an experience. So I had Teth-Adam write down the prophecies, in the ancient language of the Atlanteans, which cannot be read without the Wisdom of Solomon."

"There's a prophecy in there that says, _on the day of the six ones, the Chosen of Hell shall rise._ I think the day of the six ones is tomorrow, 11-11-11."

"I have been aware for some time that my daughter is gathering her power," Shazam said. "Perhaps she intends to strike tomorrow."

Billy skipped school on 11-11-11, so he could patrol the city as Captain Marvel all day. He saved a few people and prevented numerous crimes, but there was no demonic attack.

What he did not know was that late that night, at 11:11 P.M, the door to Ishmael Gregor's jail cell opened, and an exotically beautiful red-haired woman who was wearing dark sunglasses stepped inside. The door closed behind her, and Ishmael asked, "Who are you? How did you get in?"

"The police officer outside the door does not know what is happening," she said mysteriously. "You can call me Angelica. I can get you out of here, and give you the revenge that I know you desire in your heart."

She leaned closer to Ishmael, who thought, _Well, there aren't going to be many women where I'm going, and we _are_ alone-_

He doubled over, and cried out in pain as an invisible knife seemed to bore into his mind, ripping into his very soul and causing unspeakable agony.

"Understand that _I _am in charge," Angelica said in a terrifying, furious tone. "Everything you do, from now on, you do for me. If you follow my instructions, you will gain power greater than Captain Marvel. You will no longer have to live in the shadow of those who have magic. Will you accept my offer?"

Ishmael nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Angelica then ripped Ishmael's prison jumpsuit open, exposing his bare chest. The fingers of her right hand lengthened into talons, and Ishmael screamed in agony as they cut into his bare skin.


	8. Chapter 8

It was Saturday morning, and Billy was flying above New York as Captain Marvel. He glided downwards, settling on the top of a skyscraper, where he saw something that would have looked quite peculiar to an ordinary person: A costumed superhero reading a book. Mary was sitting between two enormous air-conditioning units, reading _Secret Prophecies of the Ancient World._ And, in addition to that, she had a cell phone clipped to her costume.

"By the Waters of Babylon," Mary read aloud, looking at the Scroll of Shazam.

"The Bible, Psalm 137," Billy said as he touched down next to her. "It's a literary prophecy."

Mary closed the book, and looked out at the early-morning sky. It was just after dawn, less than an hour before the time that Billy would have to return to the Freemans', eat a quick breakfast, and then go with them to Lake Argyle. "He had the power to predict the future, but it seemed like the one thing he really could predict was which Biblical passages would become famous."

"Can you take care of the city while I'm gone?" Billy asked.

"You're _asking_ that?" Mary said in a tone of fake anger. "Didn't you do the same before I showed up?"

"You're right," Billy answered. "Ordinary criminals won't be any match for you."

"And if anything demonic shows up," Mary said. "I'll call you."

She picked up her cell phone, a prepaid phone that looked like she had just bought it from RadioShack. But Billy said, "Well, there might be a problem there. You see, if I am Captain Marvel, you can't call me because my cell phone won't exist until I change back."

"Maybe Captain Marvel should get a cell phone," Mary suggested.

Billy ignored that, and said, "Fred's phone still exists while I'm Captain Marvel. You could call him."

Mary's face seemed to brighten slightly as she said, "But I don't have his number."

"I could give it to you."

"Are you _sure_ he wouldn't mind?"

"Well, knowing Captain Marvel's secret does require making some sacrifices."

"Ok," Mary said. "If you don't answer your phone, I'll try calling him."

"But Fred knows a lot of people at school, and he doesn't like getting too many phone calls while he's on vacation. If he doesn't know it's you, he might not answer. Do you mind if I give him your number?" Billy said in a teasing tone.

"Well, we must all make sacrifices to save the world," Mary said with a smile.

Billy told Mary what Fred's number was, reciting it from memory. Phone numbers were probably the one thing he was good at memorizing, even when he didn't have the Wisdom of Solomon.

Billy walked under a sign that read "Welcome to Babylon." It was a festive scene at an open-air shopping center in Babylon, New York, a town near Lake Argyle, where Billy and the Freemans were staying for the weekend. Billy was waiting for Fred to come out of a small shop owned by a woman who claimed to be able to grant wishes. He walked over to a life-sized statue of Hammurabi that was displayed in front of a touristy gift shop. Hammurabi was depicted holding a tablet of the famous Code of Hammurabi, and possessed all the artistic workmanship of a garden gnome. The tablet had the English words "CODE OF HAMMURABI" inscribed in it, completely ruining the antique nature of the subject. Further down the street, a construction worker was attaching a bronze eagle to the top of an unfinished building that was labeled "NEW BANK OF BABYLON."

Fred emerged from "Zatanna's Fortune Shop" and joined Billy near the Hammurabi statue.

"I almost forgot to tell you," Billy said. "Mary's – doing my job while I'm gone, and in case my cell phone doesn't exist, I gave her your number. I hope you don't mind."

"But if she calls me, how will I know that it's her?" Fred asked teasingly.

Billy told Fred what Mary's number was, as they stepped away from the Hammurabi statue. He noticed Fred immediately entering the number into his phone.

As they walked away from the gift shop, Billy looked at the New Bank of Babylon, intrigued by the Greek columns in front of the building, and the way that the words "NEW BANK OF BABYLON" were inscribed above the pillars. A construction worker was standing on a ladder, adjusting the bronze eagle that was mounted above the bank's name. Suddenly, something went wrong with the ladder, and it fell away from the construction worker, who grabbed onto the bronze eagle, desperately hanging onto it to avoid a three-story plunge.

The man cried for help, and a commotion started to develop in front of the bank. Other construction workers scrambled to assist him, but the bronze eagle was not accustomed to holding such weight, and it was already tearing free of its mounts. The other workers might not be able to help this man in time. Billy knew what he had to do.

Fred ran towards the building, seeking to create a distraction so that Billy could transform. As Fred was approaching as if he was trying to help, and making an idiot of himself in the process, Billy hurried into a flower shop where the florist and a customer had their backs to him. Without realizing that the flower shop's insurance policy probably didn't cover acts of the gods, Billy exclaimed "Shazam!"

Captain Marvel appeared amidst the ruins of the florist's front display, and flew out from broken glass and burnt flowers. He flew towards the bank, attracting a cheer from the bystanders – just as the bronze eagle ripped free of its mountings, tumbling towards the street. The construction worker screamed as he plummeted. Weighed down by the bronze eagle, he fell even faster than he would have otherwise. With the eagle on top of him, he would be crushed between the eagle and the pavement when he hit the ground.

Captain Marvel caught up to the plummeting construction worker a few feet above the ground, saving him and the bronze eagle. As he set the worker and the sculpture down on the pavement, Billy heard a cheer from the bystanders surrounding him, and felt an involuntary thrill go down his spine from the crowd's adulation. But then he remembered the faces of the fourteen dead women in Bangkok, and knew that his actions always had consequences. There was no way he could have just stood by and let an innocent man suffer a potentially fatal fall, but he knew that his actions here jeopardized his secret identity as Captain Marvel. However, he was still caught up in the moment, so he lifted up the bronze eagle, and using the Strength of Hercules guided by the Wisdom of Solomon, he fixed the damage to the building's roof and securely placed the eagle sculpture on top of it.

After he escaped from the crowds and changed back into his own body, Billy ate lunch at an Italian restaurant with Fred and his grandfather, Jacob Freeman. After lunch, they went out on Lake Argyle in a small motorboat, and Billy did manage to catch one fish, but then he got seasick. Before he started turning into Captain Marvel, Billy occasionally got seasick, but usually not in Lake Argyle. But this was much worse. He assumed it had something to do with how he received part of his power from Zeus, the god of the sky.

Billy went back to the hotel and worked on his essay using Fred's laptop, communicating with Tamara through email and Facebook messaging. She was not eager to discuss anything unrelated to the essay. Billy hoped that was because she was not doing well in their remedial English class, a class that she could not afford to fail, which meant that she and Billy needed to do well on their essay, but he was afraid that she was still upset with him for flying off to Moscow last Tuesday.

He wanted to say something like, "I didn't fly to Moscow to get away from you, I did it to catch a criminal who had just tried to kill three people." But he wasn't sure if that was true, since catching Ishmael Gregor had been an easy excuse for not coming up with an answer to Tamara's arguments about Captain Marvel.

They spent hours working on the essay, a process that was made more difficult by the fact that neither of them particularly wanted to discuss the issue of Captain Marvel's friends and loved ones, which was the main point of Tamara's side of the essay. Finally, the Freemans came back, and Billy had recovered enough from his seasickness to enjoy dinner at one of Babylon's finest restaurants. As a retired businessman, Jacob had plenty of money to pay for a luxurious vacation. He was the only adult (other than Shazam) who seemed to actually care about Billy, although Billy had always thought that maybe Jacob cared about him only because of Fred.

He had considered telling Jacob who he was, as it would make it easier for him to get away and transform in secret, but he had not reached a decision yet. Jacob had been away on a trip of his own when Billy had stayed at the Freemans' house last month after Theo turned out to be Black Adam, but Jacob was so reserved, and seemed so distant at times, that Billy had no idea how he would react.

On Sunday morning, Billy remained in the Babylon Hotel to avoid another bout of seasickness when Fred and Jacob went to the lake again. He did not attempt to continue working on the essay, partially because it could be turned in as it was, although it could use a little more work. Also, for once, he wasn't particularly eager to communicate with Tamara right now. And, it was Sunday morning, and she did attend church occasionally. Like many Americans, she identified as Christian, but did not attend church very often, and was rarely influenced by religion in her daily life.

Billy watched TV in the hotel room, and eventually got bored when he tried to watch a local program. He flipped through some channels, and then stopped when he saw himself on the news. He saw a shaky video of Captain Marvel hovering outside the New Bank of Babylon, placing the bronze eagle sculpture where it belonged. But then, something else caught his attention. Beneath the headline that talked about Captain Marvel, another headline said, "ISHMAEL GREGOR MANHUNT: DAY 2".

He felt a sudden sense of alarm when he learned that Ishmael had escaped. For a moment he was afraid that Ishmael would go after him and the people close to him, but Ishmael was unaware of Billy's secret identity. However, he still felt like he had a responsibility to find and catch Ishmael before the crime boss could harm anyone else. He walked over to Billy's laptop to access the Internet and find out how Ishmael Gregor escaped from jail. He sat down at a small table, sitting in front of the computer, when the power went out with a sudden _pop_. The lights in the motel room suddenly went out, and the laptop's screen went blank, even though it was not plugged into any electrical outlet.

Billy heard a commotion outside, and considered turning into Captain Marvel. But if he did it in the Freemans' hotel room, that could make them easy targets for whoever might be causing the power outage. He picked up his cell phone, and its screen said "NO SERVICE." This only added to his suspicion that the power outage was not normal. His heart pounding with sudden fear, he left the hotel room and descended the stairs to the first floor of the Hotel Babylon.

After helping a cat get out of a tree, Mary flew up to the roof of a skyscraper, and picked up _Secret Prophecies of the Ancient World_ from where she had hidden it in the shadow of an air-conditioning unit. She went back to looking at the Scroll of Shazam, and then she once again noticed the words, "By the waters of Babylon." And then the Wisdom of Solomon reminded her of two things: That the 137th Psalm said "By the _rivers_ of Babylon", not "By the waters of Babylon"; and that there was a town named Babylon right next to Lake Argyle, where Billy was on vacation with the Freemans. Then, she read the full prophecy.

_By the waters of Babylon,  
>a city shall burn<br>a demon shall rise,  
>a hero's fall shall begin,<br>and his replacement shall be created_

Mary had some idea of what the prophecy meant, so she quickly took off into the sky, flying towards Babylon. If it meant what she feared it did, she needed to prevent it.

While she flew over New York City, Mary called Billy's cell phone, but she did not get an answer. Then, she called Fred, and though the connection was bad since she was flying and he was out on the lake, she did still manage to talk to him.

"Fred, is anything going on over there?" Mary said over the howling of the winds that marked her passage through the sky.

"Not that I know of," Fred told her.

"Where's Billy?"

"He's not with me."

Struck by a sudden idea, Mary said, "Look behind you."

Apparently, Fred did so, as the last thing Mary heard before the connection broke was "Oh. My. God."

As Billy stepped out of the Babylon Hotel, the first thing he noticed was the smoke that was rising into what was otherwise a clear sky. A blizzard was expected to arrive in a few days, but for now, the weather was beautiful, but the blue sky was marred by dark clouds of smoke rising from several places within the city. People were screaming and running in multiple directions. Billy saw a political activist near him run away from a table where he had been urging people to sign petitions, his eyes bulging in terror.

And then Billy saw why the activist had run. A seven-foot-tall humanoid figure was flying through the air. He looked human, with a vaguely Eastern European appearance, except for two major differences: A pair of curved horns that sprouted from his forehead and a glowing symbol on his bare chest. It resembled a pentagram inscribed within a circle, and it blazed with a painfully bright golden light. The demon held out a hand, causing a small fireball to burst from his fingers, and explode in a cloud of smoke, flame and debris in front of the Babylon Hotel, just a few feet from Billy. Two bystanders screamed in pain as they were injured by the sudden burst of flame.

Billy ducked beneath the fleeing activist's table, to ensure that he would not be seen when he transformed.

"Shazam!"

The table exploded in a burst of splinters and shredded petitions, but nobody seemed to pay much attention to it. They were too busy running away from the demon. Billy and the creature flew straight at each other. Billy expected a collision, but then the world seemed to explode in flames. A searing heat struck him, and for the first time, he experienced the pain of being burnt while he was Captain Marvel.

A sudden punch slammed into his jaw. He had no time to defend himself because he was still disoriented from the flame attack, and he was thrown from the sky, landing painfully on the cement in front of the hotel. Pieces of cement flew up all around him, and stars appeared before his eyes.

Billy expected the demon to continue its attack, but it simply ignored him, and crashed through the wall of the Babylon Hotel. A moment later, the three-story building shook as a fiery explosion tore through it. Flames burst through its windows, as entire sections of the ceiling and walls collapsed. Billy heard screams from inside, and desperately hoped that no one would die there, but he seriously doubted that.

Angered by the demon's attack on innocent civilians, Billy recovered from the stunning blow and rose up into the air, confronting the demon as it emerged through the flames of the Babylon Hotel. A fireball shot towards Billy, but he dodged it with the Speed of Mercury, and it exploded on the ground. He slammed into the demon, and they grappled in midair, wrestling with each other above the burning hotel.

"I will break you, Marvel," the demon snarled. "You will pay for what you did to me."

"Ishmael?" Billy asked.

"That's right," the demon said, and punched Billy in the gut.

Agonizing pain shot through Billy's midsection, and he let go of Ishmael, dropping like a stone. He landed on the roof of a parked car, feeling it cave in beneath him. He rose into the sky, and saw Ishmael flying at him. He dodged just in time, flying upwards in an attempt to take the fight away from the innocent citizens of Babylon. Ishmael flung a fireball at Billy, who barely dodged it. Billy then flung a small bolt of lightning at the demon, striking him in midair and stunning him momentarily.

Billy flew straight at Ishmael and threw him backwards with an uppercut to the jaw, knocking him out of the sky. Ishmael crashed through the wall of a 7-11, but he emerged a moment, and flung fireballs at a crowd of people across the street from the 7-11. As Billy saw the explosions of fire and heard the screams of the injured, he made up his mind that he _had to_ stop Ishmael, regardless of the risk to himself. An idea started to occur to him. Since Ishmael had some of the same powers that he did, it was reasonable to assume that he had been created the same way that Billy had been. And maybe, the lightning bolt of Zeus would have the same effect on him that it did on Black Adam.

Just then, Ishmael shot upwards, and Billy was flung back by a fireball that struck him and exploded in midair. Ishmael slammed into Billy, pushing him backwards above the city of Babylon, pummeling him with repeated kicks and punches. There was little that Billy could do to fight back, and he could not resist when Ishmael hurled him aside in a descending arc, once they were high above the city of Babylon.

Billy plummeted like a meteor, landing in the garden of a house that was not far from Lake Argyle, and making a large hole in the ground. Every joint in his body seemed to be on fire as he slowly and painfully crawled out of the hole, lying in the dirt. He looked nothing like a superhero now. Cuts and bruises were visible on his face, and his costume was stained with dirt, scorch marks, and a little blood. He saw Ishmael coming out of the sky, and called on the Stamina of Atlas and the Courage of Achilles as he prepared for what he was about to do.

Ishmael rapidly plummeted downwards. Billy waited until the demon was directly above him, and then cried, "Shazam!"

With impossible agility, Ishmael swerved to avoid the lightning bolt, which struck Billy instead, changing him back into his own form. His mind seemed to explode with sudden panic. If he was hit by even a single fireball now, he would be barbecued. As quickly as he could, he spoke the magic word again.

"Shazam!"

Billy changed back just in time, but Ishmael still grabbed him and hurled him inside the nearby house which such force that he would have broken every bone in Billy's body if Billy had not been in his superpowered form. Billy vaguely noticed that a grand piano snapped in two as he crashed through it and landed on the floor of the house.

A moment later, the house exploded as Ishmael hurled a series of fireballs into it. The explosions shattered walls and brought the roof crashing down, as the house went up in smoke, flame, and debris. Nobody was inside except for Billy, and even he was unlikely to survive unscathed through such a devastating onslaught.

Ishmael stopped his barrage to prepare another round of fireballs, but then Billy emerged from inside. He looked battered and burnt. His costume was smoldering in four places. But he was still very much alive. Without any hesitation, he slammed into Ishmael, dragging him up into the sky, flinging him away from the city, toward Lake Argyle. Billy shot towards Ishmael, blasting him with lightning and then slamming both fists into the demon's gut, knocking him away. Dazed and weakened by the blows, Ishmael flew out over Lake Argyle, struggling to stay in the air.

Billy pursued Ishmael. This was the perfect time.

"Shazam!"

Billy caught the lightning bolt in his right hand, barely stopping it from transforming his body. His right arm felt like it was on fire, but he did not stop. He flew straight at Ishmael, and hurled the lightning bolt at him. The bolt slammed into Ishmael, who screamed in agony, falling away in a blaze of light, plummeting into the lake near a motorboat, already changing back into his own form.

What Billy did not notice from the air was that the boat was Fred and Jacob's fishing boat. Seeing Ishmael plummet, Fred understood what was happening. Ever since Billy became Captain Marvel, Fred had wished to become a superhero himself. He may not have any powers, but there was one thing he could do. He saw Ishmael struggling to surface in the water next to the boat, and then leaped into the water.

Fred grabbed Ishmael and pulled him into the boat, keeping a hand on the crime boss's mouth as Billy flew overhead.

"I've got him!" Fred called out to Billy.

It all happened so fast that Billy had no time to react. Ishmael grabbed a heavy fishing rod and knocked Fred down with a single sweep. Ishmael swung the fishing rod, slamming into Jacob's head and knocking the old man off the boat. Fred, who was lying on his stomach, barely saw Jacob fall, and had no time to react when Ishmael swung at him. The fishing rod snapped as it slammed into Fred's lower back. Fred heard a sickening _crack_, and was distantly aware, through the agony of his injury, that he could feel nothing below his waist. Ishmael grabbed him with one hand and flung him off the boat with incredible strength, throwing him towards some rocks on the shore.

Billy flew towards Fred, trying to catch him, but then Ishmael threw a fireball with incredible speed, catching Billy in the chest and knocking him into the lake.

Fred shot towards the rocks, moving at the speed of Ishmael's infernal strength. A fraction of a second before he would have hit, someone caught him at superspeed, and carried him onto the shore, laying him down on his back.

"Oh, Fred," Mary wailed, seeing the expression of pain that twisted Fred's face.

"Grandpa," Fred moaned through the pain, pointing towards the lake. "Save him."

Ishmael stood on top of the Freemans' boat, the pentagram glowing through his shirt, even though he was in his own body. As Billy rose from the lake, he felt a terrible fury towards Ishmael for what he had done to Billy's friends. He was even angry at the foolish young man who was trying to film the whole scene from his own boat.

"Sabbac!" Ishmael roared.

A plume of steam shot up into the sky as infernal power made its way through the water. The Freemans' boat shattered, and Ishmael rose up into the sky in demonic form. Billy saw Mary shoot past Ishmael, trying to save Jacob. Billy attacked Ishmael, brutally trading punches with him as Mary lifted the unconscious Jacob out of the water and carried him to the shore.

Ishmael was holding Billy by the neck. While Captain Marvel did not need air to survive, it was still incredibly painful to feel Ishmael crushing his throat. Mary slammed into Ishmael from the side, hurling him away from Billy. The demon barely avoided striking the water, and then snarled, "There's _two_ of you?"

Billy and Mary saw Ishmael rise into the air, hovering in front of them. Ishmael said, "We will meet again, one day. And you will die."

He shot up into the air with great speed. Billy and Mary heard a loud _crack_ as he broke the sound barrier. They flew over to Fred and Jacob, trying to help them until the ambulances arrived.


	9. Chapter 9

It was around midnight, but Billy and Mary were not keeping track of time as they waited outside Fred's hospital room. They were in their own bodies, and although they knew that Ishmael could easily kill them if he knew where to find them, they had no wish to leave.

Mike walked up them, and with a weary sigh, sat down in a chair next to Billy. "I wanted to come sooner, but I was working at the supermarket and my boss wouldn't let me leave."

"It's alright," Billy said. "We haven't heard anything yet."

Billy then introduced Mary, and said, "I'd prefer if you didn't tell anyone yet, but this is Mary, my twin sister. I finally found her."

Mary waved a hand in greeting, but the deep sadness she felt about what had happened to Fred was still obvious. Mike turned to Mary and said, "Mary? As in Mary Marvel?"

Billy forced himself not to react. He had no idea _how_ Mike knew Mary's name, but he knew that if Mary said the wrong thing, her identity could be exposed, and by extension, his own identity could also be discovered. But he was pleasantly surprised when Mary spoke in a tone of seemingly genuine incredulity, and said, "Who the _heck_ is Mary Marvel?"

"Captain Marvel's new sidekick," Mike explained. "They're calling her Mary Marvel because someone heard Captain Marvel calling her Mary after their last battle."

Now, Billy recalled having used Mary's name when he needed to convince her to leave Fred's side so that they could help people who were in danger from the fires downtown. They hadn't done anything important there, but they had helped to contain the damage.

"I didn't know Captain Marvel had a sidekick," Mary said, trying not to sound annoyed.

"So you don't know about the new female superhero with Captain Marvel's powers?" Mike asked.

"Oh, I've heard of her," Mary said, trying to take her mind off waiting for Fred by engaging in this debate. "I just didn't think she was a sidekick. I thought she and Captain Marvel were – you know – an equal team."

"It doesn't really matter," Mike said, throwing up his hands. "I'm sorry that I compared you to her at all."

"What's wrong with being compared to the superpowered Mary?" she asked him in a voice that sounded innocent, and gave no hint of her true identity.

"It's because those superheroes think they are better than us," Mike complained. "They fight their battles in our cities, and they don't care who gets caught in the middle. Nobody should possess such power. Too many people were hurt in Captain Marvel's battle with Black Adam, but this time, he and Sabbac killed four people and injured over thirty others."

_So they're calling him Sabbac, after the name he used to activate his powers. I'm glad they don't call me Shazam._ When Billy heard about the deaths in Babylon, he felt like he had just taken a heavy physical blow, even though he had assumed that not everyone survived Ishmael's attack on the city, and he had seen two people in the aftermath of the battle who did not appear to be breathing.

"What do you have against Captain Marvel?" Billy asked. "You didn't hate him when he first showed up. What changed your mind?"

"I probably should tell you, Billy," Mike said resignedly. "You need to know what he's really like. Well, last month, he threw Black Adam into the Hearst Building with that weird lightning bolt of his. Four people were badly injured when the lightning struck the building and destroyed Black Adam. My uncle was one of them. Even now, he's in a coma, struggling to stay alive. Even if he recovers, he'll never be the same again. That's why I hate Captain Marvel. He and Sabbac killed four people today. Thanks to them, Fred and his grandfather are in critical condition. That's what happens when we live in a world with superheroes."

"I know what happened at the Hearst Building," Billy answered. "A good friend of mine was also badly injured there. His name is Theo Templeton. He took care of me for a little while after Ebenezer kicked me out. Now, he is lying in a hospital bed, and he can't even speak, all because he was caught in the battle between Captain Marvel and Black Adam."

Billy hated having to speak sympathetically about the man who had murdered his parents, but he knew that if Theo's identity as Black Adam was exposed, Billy himself would gain a lot of attention in the media, and eventually, somebody might figure out that Billy Batson was Captain Marvel.

"How can you still admire Captain Marvel?" Mike demanded.

"It's true that my friend and your uncle were hurt by Captain Marvel. But what if Black Adam was free to devastate the city? Bullets don't hurt him, so only Captain Marvel could stop him. Black Adam had to be stopped, and if Captain Marvel hadn't thrown that lightning bolt, many more people would have been hurt. You know how dangerous Black Adam is. He killed the mayor and Dr. Thaddeus Sivana. Who knows how many more people would have died if Marvel hadn't been there to stop him?"

Despite the apparent conviction with which he made the argument, Billy couldn't avoid feeling guilty about what he had done. So many innocent people had suffered because of his actions. For the first time in his life, he was tired of being Captain Marvel.

Mary chimed in to support Billy, saying, "I did hear about what happened in Babylon. The people who died there were killed by I- Sabbac. He's the one who did it, not Captain Marvel. And Sabbac is still out there. We need Captain Marvel to defeat him, and if he isn't stopped, he'll just kill more people until everyone is begging for Captain Marvel to come back and try to stop him. I know you don't like some of the things that Captain Marvel has done, but we need him, and we also need, uh, Mary Marvel." She seemed to be reluctant to pronounce the cartoonish name that the media had created for her.

A woman wearing a uniform that marked her as a nurse walked up to the three teenagers and said, "Are you friends of Frederick and Jacob Freeman?"

"Yes," Billy answered. After a moment of hesitation, he asked, "How are they doing?"

"Jacob Freeman is still unconscious, and at this point, a full recovery is highly unlikely. We do not know if he will survive, but he will be airlifted to one of the best hospitals in Manhattan, where they'll do what they can to save him. As for his grandson, Fred is in stable condition and he's ready to receive visitors for a short time. But, if you do see him, you need to understand that he's been severely injured, and his spine was broken. He'll never be able to walk again, but I don't think he's ready to know that just yet. Will the three of you agree not to tell him?"

Billy, Mary, and Mike nodded, and then they went inside the hospital room. Fred was lying on his back, and the constant beeping noise of the machines that he was connected to seemed somehow more depressing than any other sound Billy had ever heard.

"How are you doing, Fred?" Billy asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Stop trying to hide it from me," Fred said, in a tone that was not really his own. The first time Billy heard Fred speak from the hospital bed, he knew that Sabbac had broken more than just Fred's spine. Fred had always loved sports, and had always been proud of his athletic ability. Having all of that taken away so suddenly and shockingly could affect his mind irreversibly. While Billy hoped that Fred could learn to live with his disability, he knew that the old Fred Freeman was gone, both in mind and in body.

"Hide what?" Mike asked, still unwilling to admit that Fred would never walk again.

"Sometimes the doctors think someone is unconscious when he's actually aware of everything, just unable to respond," Fred said gloomily. "I was like that. I heard them say that I would never walk again. I know what Sabbac did to me."

After seeing how upset Mary and Billy looked, Fred quickly said, "I don't blame Captain Marvel for what happened to me. The only thing the Marvels did wrong was to save me. Better to have more of a chance of stopping Sabbac than to save someone who can never be whole again."

That seemed to hurt Billy more than being blamed for the accident. He knew that he had knocked Sabbac out of the sky near the Freemans' boat, and Fred had been motivated to pull Sabbac out of the water because he wanted to be like Captain Marvel. Fred had a right to blame him for what happened. But in saving Fred from hitting the rock, Billy and Mary had done what Billy knew was the right thing. Fred deserved to live, despite what had happened to him, but those words seemed to finally convince Billy that the old Fred, the confident, fun-loving teenage boy who valued all human life, including his own, was gone.

Fred brushed off his friends' attempts to comfort him, although he did try to thank them for their support. When the nurse finally came to say that Fred needed his rest, Billy felt greatly relieved. He couldn't bear seeing his best friend like this, and knowing all the suffering he had inflicted on Fred. As he walked through the corridors of the hospital, his head and shoulders seemed to be burdened by a massive weight, and he barely noticed the corridors and walls of the hospital, and merely followed Mary and Mike as they walked out of the building.

"Do you two need a ride?" Mike asked in a voice that was weighed down with grief, but also with anger, not at Billy or Mary, but at Sabbac and Captain Marvel.

"I have a car," Mary said vaguely, speaking in a voice that was thick with sadness. Billy knew that Mary had not driven to the hospital, but Mike didn't know that. Of course, she had her own way to get back home.

Billy and Mary walked over to a deserted playground a couple blocks from the hospital, where they would transform into their superpowered forms and go to the Rock of Eternity. The cold night winds, harbingers of the coming blizzard, blew the swings in the playground back and forth slightly, creating an eerie noise as the swings creaked ominously on their hinges, which seemed to reflect Billy's mood.

"Are you ready to see the wizard?" Mary asked quietly.

"I wish I never met him!" Billy exclaimed in frustration, holding back tears. "If I never became Captain Marvel, Fred would still be fine."

"You've done so much good," Mary pleaded. "So many people owe their lives to you."

She spoke with passion, but Billy could hear the undercurrent of doubt in her voice. She too, had been shaken by what happened to Fred, and she also knew that it was because of Captain Marvel. But they both understood that they needed to stop Sabbac, and they needed to talk to Shazam about it.

"Shazam," they both said without enthusiasm.

Superficially, the Rock of Eternity did not seem to have changed. The statues that imprisoned the Seven Deadly Sins were still lined up on the left wall, the magical artifacts of the ancient world were still arranged on their shelves, and Shazam still sat upon his throne, under the stone block, gazing into the Historama. But Billy could feel the general sense of darkness that had descended upon this place, a cold, depressing mood that was reflected in Shazam's expression.

Shazam looked up from the Historama. "I am sorry. I should have warned you that my daughter would be able to choose a champion of her own after I had granted powers unto you."

While the Courage of Achilles did make him feel a little less despondent, a horrible feeling of guilt descended upon Billy as he realized that Sabbac would not have been created if not for him. The Wisdom of Solomon filled in all of the arcane details, but he still wanted to ask Shazam, so he could know for sure. "If I hadn't become Captain Marvel, would Sabbac exist?"

"You must not blame yourself for his actions. That is exactly what he wants you to do. He wants to have doubts, and he wants you to stop believing in yourself, for then you would be weak, and easier to kill."

"Answer me!" Billy demanded. "Why was Blaze able to create a champion now, when she hadn't created one for so long?"

"When the gods made peace with the demons, the laws of balance were created. As my daughter and I stand between the mortal and immortal worlds, we have certain exceptions to the rules. We can grant power to mortals, turning them into champions. But by the laws of balance, if I create a champion, then she can do the same. It is true that when I gave you the power of the gods, I created an imbalance of the scales that enabled my daughter to choose her own champion."

"What about Teth-Adam?" Mary asked. "Why didn't Blaze create a champion of her own during his time?"

"Teth-Adam was my never my champion," Shazam explained. "But he wasn't really hers, either. I would have given Adam the same powers that you possess now, but Blaze made a deal with him, so that his powers would come from the Egyptian gods, who had always been reluctant to support the war against Hell. After I took Adam's powers away, and violated multiple divine laws, I was forbidden to choose another champion, and my daughter did not possess the ability either. But when I knew that Adam's return was at hand, I chose you, Billy, because I knew that you had what it takes to stop him. Even if Adam did not rise, there are worse things than Sabbac. I knew that Blaze would make her move eventually, and the creation of an infernal champion is not the only thing that she has planned. I still stand by my decision to give you the power of the gods. If you allow Sabbac to make you blame yourself, then you will be playing right into his hands."

Billy still did not seem convinced, but it was Mary who spoke next, still refusing to give up. "How do we fight him? He seems to be just as strong in his own form."

"He is," Shazam confirmed. "Blaze carved a symbol of infernal power in Ishmael Gregor's chest, and indelibly turned him into a monster. He is never without his powers, but to gain those powers, he paid a horrible price: His soul."

"So he sold his soul like Faust?" Mary asked.

"People do not sell souls," Shazam told her. "But a demon cannot have a human soul, as the soul contains all of the higher qualities of humankind, those intangible things that give us the capacity to do good. The reason that Ishmael Gregor gave up his soul to become Sabbac is that he could not bind himself to such powers without first removing the one thing that made him human. Sabbac is now irredeemably evil. He has become a demon in all that truly matters, and everything good has been erased from his mind. No prison can hold him, and now that he has chosen this path, nothing can bring him to remorse. If he survives, he will unleash the fury of Hell upon this world, and millions will die. That is why I will ask you to do what I would hope you would never have to do."

"You must kill him," Shazam said in a tone of finality.

"Are you sure?" Mary asked, but Billy could detect no sympathy for Sabbac in her voice. He himself did not have any doubts concerning what they had to do. He knew what Sabbac had done, and would do again. And he was certain that Sabbac could not be neutralized in the same way that Black Adam had been. She seemed to understand that as well as he did, but she just needed confirmation.

"Yes," Shazam said. He turned to Billy, saying, "Sabbac has chosen you as his mortal enemy. You should understand that battling a demon is like nothing you have ever experienced before. Teth-Adam was such a dangerous foe because he believed everything he did was right, but Sabbac is even worse, because he now has no concept of morality or conscience. He will do everything in his power to hunt you down and kill you. However, the spells I have placed to protect your identity have not been breached. He does not know who you are, but he will try to find out."

"The next time you disappear and turn into Captain Marvel, he will do everything in his power to find you. He will try to find out who you are, and if he does, he will attempt to kill you while you are in your own body. If you change, he will make you watch all of your friends die unless you turn back into your own form so he can kill you. However, there is a way to avoid this. You have the perfect alibi for your absence: You were in Babylon on the day of the attacks. By altering a few people's memories, I can make the world believe you disappeared at Babylon. Will you let me cast these spells that I have planned, on you and those mortals who have seen Billy Batson after the battle, so that Sabbac cannot find out who you are?"

"Not Fred," Billy said suddenly. "He needs to know everything."

"Frederick Freeman is a remarkable young man, and I trust him not to do anything that would threaten your secret. I will not erase his memories. Instead, I will step into his mind and tell him what he needs to do. I think that he will understand."

"Then do it," Billy said. "I'll disappear until all this is over."

"You understand that _nobody_ except Fred and Mary may know that you are alive," Shazam said in a firm, unbending tone. Billy nodded, knowing what Shazam meant.

Shazam then turned to Mary and said, "You, however, are not Sabbac's prey. You can go back to your home, and he is not likely to search for you if you do not bother him again."

"You're asking me to give up?" Mary exclaimed. "How can you expect me to stand by while Sabbac starts destroying the world? Maybe the women in your time were different, but I don't give up so easily."

For a moment, Billy was afraid that Shazam would be angry with Mary, but the wizard smiled and said, "I am proud of you, Mary Bromfield, and I expected no less from you. However, you are not Sabbac's target like Billy is, and war with Sabbac is not something that I would force upon anyone."

"So, do I need to disappear too?" Mary asked.

"No," answered Shazam. "The spells that protect you are weaker than Billy's, and they still require your involvement."

"My involvement?"

"You must continue to deceive those around you. If you do not act to make the lie of your mundane existence believable to them, Sabbac will be able to break the spell, and he will not hesitate to maim or kill everyone you care about. Your parents, your friends, none of them will be safe unless you maintain your cover."

"If he finds out," Mary asked, "can I take them somewhere safe? Like, maybe, the Rock of Eternity?"

"Mortals cannot remain here for long," Shazam said. "And even if you could convince the people close to you that they need to go into hiding in the mortal world, one of them could easily make a mistake and cause all of them to be found, and you cannot protect everyone _they_ care about. I won't lie to you, Mary. If you choose to fight, everything you love could be taken from you. But if Sabbac wins, nothing will be able to stop him. If I lose the two of you, I can pick another champion, but then so can Blaze. If you and Billy fail to defeat Sabbac, I do not know if anything will stand between this world and the wrath of Blaze."

"They never make a fair deal," Mary said quietly.

"What?" Billy asked, surprised by Mary's strange tone. She sounded scared, but also more sure of herself than she had ever been before. Powers or no powers, she was no longer the girl who thought that spelling bees and other trivial things were more important than who her birth parents were. She had changed in the last few days, and Billy did not know if that was a good thing.

"The demons," Mary said. "They fought the gods in what appeared to be a battle for supremacy. But the only purpose of that war was so that innocent humans would be caught in the middle, and the gods would be moved by their suffering, making them eager to end the war. They made the peace treaty, and willingly accepted its restrictions, because they knew that Blaze would be born."

Mary turned to Shazam and said, "They sent Lilith to negotiate with you, because they knew that you would feel obligated to do whatever was necessary to end the war. They worded the treaty in such a way that the gods would think of every possible way that a demon could outsmart it, but the gods never suspected that you would have a demonic daughter. The gods' hands are tied, and so are the hands of the true demons, but Blaze has far more freedom. She was the one who was meant to bring about the reign of Hell on earth."

"Blaze helped the evil priest Ahk-Ton to steal the Orb of Ra, so you would need to create your first champion, enabling her to create a champion of her own. If you created a champion, he or she would be evenly matched against Blaze's champion. However, Blaze did not want her plan to hinge on a battle where you had an equal or greater number of champions, so she corrupted Teth-Adam, and made him a champion of the Egyptian gods, while giving him just enough of a connection to you that he counted as your first champion. Her intention was to make you choose another champion to fight Teth-Adam. She hoped that Adam would kill your other champion, and she could have two champions if you created another."

"But the one thing she didn't expect was that you would be bold enough to take Adam's powers away. She knew that such an act would risk a conflict between the Greek gods and the Egyptian gods, but she also understood that the gods would turn their wrath on you to satisfy their pride while avoiding an earthshaking conflict. As a cold and selfish creature, Blaze did not understand that you would make such a sacrifice. She expected that you would create another champion to fight Teth-Adam. And she finally got her wish, although it took three thousand years."

"How do you know all that?" Billy asked.

"The Wisdom of Solomon. It grants supernatural knowledge. You just have to be willing to listen."

"Could you have done something else to stop Adam?" Billy asked.

"No," Shazam said. "It is important to understand that while the gods possess vast intelligence and wisdom, they also have the same flawed minds that humans possess. In their pride and arrogance, the gods always feared that I would try to take their place in the hearts of mortals. And they had to satisfy the ancient laws, so what little freedom I had in the mortal world was taken away. If they did not wish to see Black Adam defeated as much as I did, there would have been no way that they would have let me make you into champions."

"So that's why you know something is coming," Billy suddenly figured out. "It all started with me."

"Do not feel bad about yourself, Billy," Shazam implored. "The battle against Hell had to happen someday; it was inevitable. I could not stand by and let Teth-Adam unleash his power on the entire world."

Billy now understood what he would have to do. He knew that he had to stop Sabbac, and he knew that Mary would stand by him. And, at the same time, he realized that Shazam must have known all along that Mary was still alive, without being certain of it. Now he understood the _real_ reason why the Historama could not find her. Shazam had found a way to create two champions at once, while not allowing Blaze to create more than one of her own.


	10. Chapter 10

_Monday, November 14, 2011_

Although everyone seemed to be in the grip of terror from Sabbac's attack on Babylon, it was just an ordinary workday for a young dispatcher in the New York Police Department. He had just finished answering a particularly frustrating call from an angry New Yorker who mistakenly believed that his neighbor was breaking the law, when a very unusual call came through the phone line.

"New York Police Department," said the dispatcher.

"I want you to track this number, and update me on anything that happens with Sabbac, or Ishmael Gregor." The voice on the other end seemed to be slightly distorted by indistinct background noise.

"Who is this?"

"Captain Marvel."

"Ok, Captain Marvel," the NYPD dispatcher said in a controlled voice, unwilling to believe that this caller actually _was_ the world's mightiest man. "Can you tell me where you are?"

"The Verizon Wireless store at Broadway and Canal Street. I just bought a cell phone."

"You're Captain Marvel and you have a cell phone?" the dispatcher said in disbelief.

"Listen."

The dispatcher then heard numerous voices speaking as if Captain Marvel was present. He heard at least two people ask Captain Marvel for his autograph.

"Can I speak to the commissioner?" Captain Marvel asked.

"Uh, Captain Marvel… I- I don't think that would work out right now. The commissioner is in an important meeting. I'll let him know you called as soon as I can."

However, Captain Marvel did not know the nature of the commissioner's meeting.

"You will tell me where the witnesses against me are hiding, and you will not speak of this," Sabbac said to the thoroughly hypnotized police commissioner.

In the late morning, Billy swooped down from the sky, following the sound of police sirens. He saw that two men were being dragged away in handcuffs, and a victim was leaving the scene in an ambulance. The police already had everything under control, and there was nothing left for Captain Marvel to do. But then, he saw another human figure emerge from the blanket of grey clouds that filled the sky.

For a moment, he thought it was Sabbac, but then he saw the familiar white, red, and gold of Mary's superhero costume. He flew up into the clouds, out of earshot of the mortals beneath him, and Mary followed him.

"Why aren't you in school?" Billy asked. "The wizard said you maintain your cover."

"Teacher conference," Mary said dismissively. "And what were _you _doing? Is it true that you were spotted outside the Verizon store at Broadway and Canal Street?"

"Yes," Billy answered, sounding more cheerful than he felt, because he was still Captain Marvel. "I bought a cell phone."

He held up his new phone, and Mary asked him, "How did you pay for it? Did they give you a 100% superhero discount?"

"Somebody set up a charity to support Captain Marvel," Billy said. "I didn't pay much attention to it until now, but their money has now been spent for a worthy cause."

"So you can stay in touch with your friends?" Mary teased him.

"You know I want to tell I'm all right," Billy said, and Mary understood exactly who he was talking about. "But she'll have to find out on her own."

Just then, the theme song from _Superman _played, and Billy picked up his new cell phone.

"Seriously?" Mary asked. "You have _that_ as your ringtone?"

Billy ignored her and picked up the phone, quickly saying, "I'll be right there."

He shot downwards into the city, and Mary followed him. Flying between buildings and over streets, he covered the distance as quickly as possible. He crashed through the window of a tenth-story apartment, and flew inside to find three dead bodies lying on the floor. He immediately recognized Nikolai Sidorov, with Mikhail and Steve, his two thugs. They had been witnesses against Ishmael Gregor, and now that he was Sabbac, they never had a chance.

A chair slammed into Billy, shattering into a hundred pieces on impact and throwing him through the wall of the apartment building. He floated outside the building, and saw Mary collide with Sabbac just as she entered through the window. They tumbled through the floor, and then burst through the wall on the eighth story. Mary flung Sabbac aside, but he did not fall, and he then threw an orange ball of fire at her. She barely dodged the fireball, which struck a large billboard on the side of a building, blasting a flame-scorched hole in the plastic image of an artificially beautiful fashion model.

Mary flew straight at Sabbac, and Billy flew around the demon. The two Marvels came at him from either side, but at the last second, he shot upwards with supernatural speed. Billy and Mary narrowly avoided colliding with each other, but then Sabbac immediately came down like a stone, striking them both with his outstretched arms, sending them plummeting toward the street below.

Sabbac swung an arm and sent Mary flying, causing her to land behind a large school lunch truck that had been parked outside a warehouse. Hovering a few inches over the street, Billy heard the squeal of breaks, and the screech of skidding tires, as cars desperately tried to avoid running into the battle of superheroes. Billy whipped his arm forward, and sent a lightning bolt flying straight into the pentagram on Sabbac's chest.

The demon flinched and growled with pain as the lightning struck him. Billy saw an opportunity, and flew straight at Sabbac. The ground exploded in front of Billy as a wave of fire and destruction shot towards him. He flew aside with great speed, taking cover behind the lunch truck, accidentally running into Mary, who had been about to fly at Sabbac herself.

Billy and Mary ducked behind the truck as fragments of fiery pavement rained down all around them. Luckily, all the bystanders seemed to have vacated the area.

"I think he's vulnerable to our lightning," Billy whispered to Mary.

Billy leaned out from behind the truck, and saw Sabbac standing in front of a network of cracks he had created in the road, many of which were filled with streams of molten asphalt. He held out his arm and snapped off a lightning bolt at Sabbac, who jerked aside at the last moment and threw a fireball at Billy.

Billy ducked to avoid the fiery explosion, and looked at the smoking, orange-rimmed hole that had taken out much of the truck's rear right corner.

"I think we need another plan," he suggested to Mary, as Sabbac threw a fireball, and a parked car went up in flames.

"Let's swing the truck at him," Mary suggested.

"Okay, swing the truck," Billy answered, as if swinging a multi-ton truck like club was the most natural thing in the world.

Billy couldn't lift the truck as easily as he could a car, but with Mary helping him, he did manage to swing the truck at Sabbac as if it was a gigantic club. Sabbac ducked, and then the truck came down on him from above as Billy and Mary groaned with the effort of swinging it. The truck slammed down onto Sabbac, smashing him through the street, and making a large crater in the ground. The Marvels let go of the truck, and it fell through the street, along with Sabbac and a large amount of asphalt. The ground seemed to shake with a massive crashing noise.

They flew downwards, into the hole, hoping that they had managed to crush Sabbac with school lunches. But they were disappointed. As they flew into what had once been a functional subway track, Billy and Mary saw the battered remains of the lunch truck smashed against one wall, and Sabbac was nowhere to be seen. They searched for him in the subway, but they saw no sign of him.

"You'll have to teach me how to do that lightning thing," Mary said as she and Billy flew out of the subway.

"I will," Billy said.

"I am very proud of all of you for having written these essays on such short notice," the English teacher said to her students. "All of you – except for Billy and Tamara."

"Billy's not here," Tamara said slowly. "But we did finish working on the essay."

She hesitantly pulled the essay folder out of her backpack, and laid it on her desk.

"Pass it forward," the teacher instructed.

Giving the essay to the student sitting in front of her felt painful for Tamara, because she hated turning it in when Billy was not present. It somehow felt like a betrayal, to be turning in the result of their work when she didn't even know if he was alive or dead. She had heard nothing about Captain Marvel all day, and the school's internet connection was down, so she couldn't find out for herself.

In her geometry class after English, Tamara barely even knew what the teacher was talking about, and she was sure that she would get 0% on her quiz when it came back. It was so hard, not knowing whether Billy was alive or dead, and also knowing that even if he still lived, at any moment he could be plunged into a fight to the death with Sabbac.

After school, her two best friends caught up with her. Jessica and Lauren always seemed to know if Tamara had something important on her mind, and today was no exception. At their insistence, Tamara sat down with them on a public bench, which was far enough away from pedestrian traffic that they could talk without being overheard.

"We've decided to tell you that we know," Lauren said as she and Jessica sat down on either side of Tamara.

"That's right," Jessica said. "We're tired of hiding this from you. We know just as well as you do that Billy is Captain Marvel. I know they say he's missing, but that's because he's staying away from all of us. He just wants to protect us."

"I always thought you knew," Tamara said, trying to force a smile. "But he's out there, fighting Sabbac. How do we know he's not-" The word stuck in her throat. She refused to say it out loud.

"If Sabbac killed Captain Marvel," Lauren said. "All of New York City would know. He wants to terrify people, and what could terrify them more than losing their hero?"

"So at any moment, Sabbac might come on TV and say it?" Tamara asked weakly.

"He could," Jessica said. "He doesn't sound like someone who would miss an opportunity to terrify people with his own superiority. Because he hasn't done that, we know that Captain Marvel is still alive. And, he's fought Black Adam. How much tougher could Sabbac be?"

Tamara did not really agree with what Jessica had said about comparing Sabbac to Black Adam, because she had seen videos of Captain Marvel fighting Sabbac in Babylon. But she kept that to herself, and said, "Thank you. You've always been such good friends to me."

"You know we'll always be there for each other," Lauren said.

"Just like we promised in seventh grade," Jessica added. "And we've always kept that promise."

"I wonder what it really is like for him…" Tamara said dreamily, trying to imagine what Billy might be doing at that time.

Actually, Billy was flying, swooping down towards a fleeing burglar who ran away from him, only to run straight towards Mary, who zapped him with a blast of lightning and knocked him out cold.

"Good," Billy said, clapping his hands with approval at Mary having conjured a lightning bolt successfully. "You've mastered the tactical lightning bolt. That's not the same thing as the lightning bolt that turns us into superheroes, but it's still quite useful against Sabbac."

Billy whipped out his cell phone, and called the police, arranging for them to arrest the burglar. However, he could not stop a large crowd from gathering around the crime scene. He flew around the crowd, trying to avoid direct fan encounters. But then, he almost flew right into Timmy Timberland.

"CAPTAIN MARVEL!" exclaimed the little boy in an enthusiastic tone of awe.

Billy remembered that he had to hide that he knew the kid, so he said, "What's your name, kid?"

"Timmy Timberland!" the boy said enthusiastically. "Can- can I have your autograph?"

Billy did not want to disappoint the boy, and maybe he could make _one_ person happy after all of the people who had suffered because he was Captain Marvel. Timmy held out a Captain Marvel-themed school notebook, and Billy signed Captain Marvel's name in it, letting the Wisdom of Solomon decide what Captain Marvel's signature should look like.

"You'll beat Sabbac," the boy said with childish faith and conviction. "I know you will."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because you're Captain Marvel. You can do anything."

"That's not true. I've made some big mistakes. People have suffered because of me."

"You can fix them. Remember, you're Captain Marvel, and there's nothing you can't do."

As Mary glided towards Billy and his ten-year-old fan, Billy desperately wished that healing was one of his powers, but then, an idea suddenly occurred to him.

"What?" Mary asked, clearly noticing the change in Billy's expression.

"Let me know if Sabbac shows up," Billy said, and flew off into the sky.

Unbeknownst to Billy, a camera shutter clicked discreetly from thirty feet away. However, the camera was not aimed at him.

It was hearbreaking for Billy to see Fred, who had once been so strong, looking broken and pathetic in his hospital bed. Billy had hypnotized the nurses outside the hospital room, and he was glad that they were on the highest floor of this Long Island hospital, so that nothing would be between them and the sky.

"What are you doing here?" Fred asked in a distant tone.

He really meant, "Why are you here as Captain Marvel and not as yourself?"

But Billy did not answer the question. Instead, he stepped closer to the bed, and shouted, "Shazam!"

The lightning bolt blasted a large hole in the ceiling, and nearly turned Billy back into his own form. But Billy managed to gain control of it just in time, and then held it, the brilliantly glowing golden light of Zeus shimmering in his right hand. He stepped towards Fred, and held the bolt over him. Touching Fred with the bolt would be too dangerous, because Fred was human. But the Wisdom of Solomon enabled Billy to understand the bolt and how it works. He knew that would do it. However, he was not prepared for what happened.

Everything disappeared around Billy, and all he could see was a semicircle of six humanlike figures, standing in an endless white haze. He saw, at the apex of the semicircle, a proud, bearded man who held a lightning bolt that was almost as tall as he was. Storm clouds flickered around his head, and were reflected in his eyes. Billy had no doubt that this was Zeus, King of the Gods, whose lightning bolt empowered Billy.

Standing at Zeus's right was a white-haired and white-bearded man who wore the ceremonial trappings of an ancient Hebrew monarch. This was Solomon, whose power had been Billy's guide in his struggle against evil.

Atlas stood on Zeus's left, his head and shoulders bowed under an unseen weight. At his left was Mercury, a slender young man clad in winged sandals and an unassuming tunic. To the right of Solomon, the heavily-muscled Hercules was clad in the skin of the Nemean lion, and Achilles was wearing full Greek battle armor while holding a bronze spear.

Zeus stepped forward, and the entire world seemed to tremble with his presence. His thundering voice shook Billy to the bone. "We know why you have come. And you know why we cannot grant your request."

"He can do it," Billy said. "I know him better than I know anyone else, and I am sure of that. He already knows my secret. He's a part of my world, and he has suffered for it. Please, let me grant him this gift."

"Do you not know the price?" Zeus thundered. "For every champion we create, the demons can make one of their own."

Despite all his powers, Billy felt utterly helpless in the presence of these gods. He owed everything to them, and he knew that they could easily destroy him if they wished.

"I fear the balance will become irrelevant soon enough," Solomon interrupted calmly. "I have spent much time looking into the future. I have already told you what I know. If Sabbac achieves his goal, the old laws of balance will become far less important. Blaze will have to gather her power again before she chooses another champion, and by that time Sabbac will have been defeated, or he will have won, in which case it may not matter how many champions Blaze has. Zeus, I implore you. You know what is coming."

Zeus turned on Solomon, looking like he wanted want to blast the ancient king to dust. But instead, he sighed, a great sound like a thousand storms rumbling into existence. "Like my daughter, you have an annoying habit of telling me what logically appears to be the right decision when I am planning to do exactly the opposite. But I see the wisdom of your choice. I will grant our champion's request, if his sister will also agree. The power must come from both of you. There is no other way."

Billy nodded, and then Solomon said, "You understand that your power will be only a third of what you originally possessed."

"Yes."

"Then I shall grant your request."

The flash of thunder and lightning seemed to obliterate Billy's senses for an instant, but then, he was back in the real world. The hospital room was in shambles, and the bed had been broken into at least a hundred pieces. But none of that mattered to Billy. What did matter to him was that Fred was standing where his bed had once been, completely alive and well. He was wearing a costume very similar to Captain Marvel's, but he still looked like himself, with a few slight differences. He was the first Marvel to clearly and unmistakably look like a teenager. Billy was sure that the gods had also communicated with Fred, and with Mary.

"I've always wanted this. I even went into a silly wish-granter's shop to ask for it. But now that I'm a superhero like you, it doesn't make me happy. But if you gave me these powers, I am going to use them well. _He_ turned me into what I am, and almost killed my grandfather, but that was only a small fraction of the evil he has wrought upon this world, and what he will he will continue to do if he is not stopped. I'll help you and Mary fight him. I want to take down Sabbac." Fred's voice was intense, overwhelmed by a strong, passionate desire for vengeance, with a strange undercurrent of Captain Marvel's cheerful optimism.

"You can't use my name anymore," Billy said.

"What?" Fred demanded. "I can't say Billy Batson-"

He waited expectantly, but no lightning bolt came down.

"You can't say Captain Marvel," Billy explained. "Your power comes from me, not the wizard. If you say "Captain Marvel", you'll change back."

The sun was starting to set, but Billy and Fred did not notice the weather as they flew over Brooklyn and heard the sound of police sirens beneath them. They zeroed in on the flashing lights below, where police were chasing a band of four bank robbers who were in a getaway car. Fred and Billy shot down towards the getaway car, which swerved aside and crashed into a small electronics store. The robbers swarmed out of the car, but Billy and Fred flew into the shop, flinging the robbers out onto the street one at a time.

One robber escaped through the back door, and Fred flew after him, with Billy following close behind. The robber ran outside into an alley, and then left the ground, seemingly of his own accord. Mary lifted him up by the shoulders. A radiant smile lit up her face when she saw Fred and Billy flying out of the store.

"I just _knew_ you were going to do that," Mary said as she carried the terrified robber around the building and deposited him with his equally frightened partners. "And when the gods asked me if I could give up part of my power, I started flying towards you, fighting crime along the way, and then we all found the same bank robbers."

Ishmael Gregor slept, while men who had served him before he changed watched in all directions. Of course, they barely knew what they were doing, now that he had entered their minds. They would be no match for Captain Marvel, but at least they could give Ishmael some warning if Marvel came while he slept. When Ishmael woke to feel a talonlike hand pressing against his throat, he woke suddenly and swung his fist upwards, but it barely moved, and he felt like he was trapped in molasses. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

"You have displeased me," Angelica Blaze said as she leaned over Ishmael, her hand still brushing his throat. "You have strayed too far from the goal. You pursued your personal desire for revenge against the men who betrayed you. You fought Captain Marvel, but you completely lost sight of your true objective. In fact, your lowly henchman has done more for our goal than you have."

"I will do as you ask, Lady Blaze," Ishmael said in a tone of submission.

He watched Blaze walk away and seem to merge into the darkness of the night. He saw that his guards were asleep, and he seriously doubted that they would ever wake up. But he was tired of being pushed around by people who had more magic than he did. If he was going to do Blaze's bidding, he needed to do something that would show her that he still had his own free will. And he knew exactly what that was.

The hospital monitors beeped slowly as Theo Templeton lay in bed with IV lines connected to his veins. His lips moved to form the word that would make him powerful again, but even though his mouth seemed to be fine, he could form no words.

Theo heard screams of terror, followed by a thud as someone was flung aside, and then the door to his room slammed open. Sabbac walked in, a seven-foot tall demon with horns and a glowing pentagram upon his chest.

_So Blaze has finally sent someone to kill me_, Theo thought as the demon's hand reached for his throat, glowing with red energy. The demon touched Theo, who writhed in agony, unable to cry out. Suddenly, the pain was gone.

"You can speak now," the demon said.

Theo assumed this was a cruel trick, a way for Blaze to torment him, but he tried anyway.

"Shazam!"

The word actually came from his mouth, and seemed to vibrate in the air. The lightning bolt blasted its way through the ceiling, transforming Theo Templeton into Teth-Adam.

"I'm back," Theo said, and furiously destroyed the medical equipment that had sustained his life while he was injured. "But you know I won't be your pawn to throw against Captain Marvel. I'll fulfill my own destiny."

"I'm counting on it," Sabbac said.

Theo flew up into the sky, building up speed until he left the Earth's atmosphere.


	11. Chapter 11

Muzzaf Amadin, dictator of Kahndaq, was giving a speech. A great crowd had formed in the plaza in front of him, and TV cameras were trained on the balcony where he stood. As he spoke of Kahndaq's future, uttering vague words about staying strong in difficult times, he did not notice that many of his people were looking at the sky. A fiery meteor seemed to be descending from space, growing larger and larger, as if it was about to strike the Kahndaqi capitol building.

As the meteor grew closer, fear spread through the crowd. Then, Amadin himself cried out in terror when he saw that the meteor was descending directly towards his balcony. Amadin nervously looked at the door behind him, and then he rushed inside when he saw what the meteor really was.

Black Adam was wreathed in the flames of atmospheric re-entry, but he was completely unharmed from his trip to space. He landed on the balcony in a fiery explosion that sent two of Amadin's aides tumbling into the crowd below. Adam punched his way through the wall of the palace, pursuing Amadin.

"SHOOT HIM!" the terrified dictator screamed at his guards.

The capitol building was filled with the staccato roar of automatic weapons, but none of the bullets harmed Adam. Some of the people in the square outside were hit by stray gunfire, but Amadin didn't care. He only wanted to put as much distance between himself and Amadin as possible.

The soldiers were a mere nuisance to Adam, who pushed them aside whenever they got in his way. He was here to reclaim his kingdom, and nothing would stop him.

"JUNIOR?" Fred exclaimed in disgust, throwing the newspaper down on the outdoor table at the abandoned restaurant where the three Marvels were sitting as they waited for new developments in their war with Sabbac.

"They're calling me Captain-" Fred stopped right before he would have said the name that would change him back to his own form. He then turned to Billy, and said, "Your name- Junior."

"I didn't ask them to call you Captain Marvel Jr.," Billy said, looking at the article titled _"MARVEL FAMILY" STOPS BANK ROBBERS._ "I think it's because you're the only one of us who really looks like a teenager. I didn't come up with the name "Marvel Family", and I certainly never asked to be called the "Big Red Cheese" by some reporters."

"I'm still worried about Theo," Mary said. "Lightning doesn't usually strike hospital rooms where superpowered criminals are being kept. He must have somehow turned into Black Adam again."

"We can't do anything about him now," Billy said. "If he's returning to Kahndaq, which is what I would expect him to do, we can't follow him without leaving New York City undefended. And if we split up, we won't be strong enough to fight Sabbac."

Billy's cell phone suddenly rang. He picked it up, and put it to his ear.

"Turn on the TV," said a cruel, but human-sounding voice with a Russian accent. The phone call ended, but Billy knew who it was.

Although the Wisdom of Solomon told him not to listen to anything that Sabbac had to say, Billy still needed to know what was happening. He flew into a small restaurant where the news was playing on a TV. All of the restaurant's patrons stopped eating to stare at Captain Marvel, and at the other two Marvels, who were standing outside. A waiter dropped a tray of dirty dishes on the floor, causing three of them to break.

But Billy did not notice any of that. All he saw was the image on the TV, which showed Sabbac standing on the roof of a theater in Times Square, holding Timmy Timberland in front of him. Billy was only vaguely aware of the newscaster saying that Sabbac had kidnapped this child, and police were arriving at the scene, but they were not taking any action, to avoid hurting the boy.

Fred and Mary had also seen it, so that when Billy flew out of the restaurant and rose into the air, they followed him, and Fred said, "It's a trap, Billy. You know that."

"I'm not going to let that child die," Billy said forcefully. "Enough people have suffered because of my actions. You don't have to come with me, but I am going to save Timmy Timberland."

"Don't be ridiculous," Mary said. "We'll stick together."

When Billy arrived in Times Square, Sabbac was standing on the roof of a theater, holding a screaming Timmy Timberland in front of him. "You know the consequences of your actions, Captain Marvel. I do not know who you are, so I can only guess. You talked to this boy, while ignoring all of your other fans. I think you know him in your life. That is why he must die now. You shall know the price of your actions. Tell me who you are, Marvel, so I can stop guessing. Or more people will die as I try to find out the truth."

As Billy flew towards the theater, he considered telling Sabbac everything, just to save this innocent child whose only crime was believing in Captain Marvel. But then Tamara and everyone else close to Billy would die, as Sabbac would not stop until he had found everyone Billy cared about and killed them.

Timmy screamed, and Sabbac threw him over Times Square, causing the ten-year-old to fly towards the side of a skyscraper like a missile.

With the Speed of Mercury, Billy intercepted Timmy and caught him, swooping down towards the street to let him go. But then, Billy noticed that Timmy was writhing in horrible pain. Red veins were visible all over the child's skin. He was caught in the grip of an infernal curse. He could die any moment now, and there seemed to be only one thing Billy could do.

"Distract him!" Billy shouted to Fred and Mary.

As he concentrated on the Power of Zeus, Billy distantly saw his two companions fly at Sabbac, who easily threw them aside. Fred was slammed onto the roof of a parked taxi, and Mary was thrown into the famous Coca-Cola sign, which exploded in a brilliant shower of sparks. Billy hoped that they could hold their own for now, while he tried to save Timmy.

_Infernal effects cease to function at the Rock of Eternity_, Billy thought, remembering what Shazam had told him. He felt the mortal world slip away, and then he reappeared in the Rock of Eternity.

Shazam rose from his throne, exclaiming, "You fool! It's not him!"

Then, Billy saw the dreadful mistake that he had made. The creature he was holding was not Timmy Timberland. It was a skeletal demon, with glowing red eyes, and a hideously misshapen head. Infernal effects may cease in the Rock of Eternity, but demons do not change their nature, even here. This demon only the illusion that made it look like Timmy Timberland.

The demon's mouth extended in a hideous smile. Billy suddenly knew that this was what they really wanted. It was never about Captain Marvel. They only wanted to get one of their own kind into the Rock of Eternity. Everything else was secondary.

Billy swung his arm downwards to smash the monster's grinning skull, but the demon exploded before he could touch it. The blast was unlike anything Billy had ever felt before. It felt like his mind was on fire, and the very world became a blur around him. He saw the gaping hole in the floor, which stretched down so far that Times Square was visible beneath it. Strangely enough, he now realized that the Rock of Eternity actually _did_ follow him everywhere.

Sabbac flew upwards through the hole, but Billy was helpless to fight him. However, Sabbac ignored Billy's prone form. He flew straight at Shazam, who for the first time that Billy had ever seen, was standing in front of his throne, rather than sitting on it.

Shazam held out both hands, and a brilliant blast of radiant arcane energy slammed into Sabbac, hurling him backwards. Sabbac extended his own hands as he rose to his feet and approached the wizard. Blindingly bright infernal fire clashed with Shazam's own energy, throwing out waves of destructive force that battered the walls of the Rock of Eternity, sending out great clouds of dust and debris. Ancient artifacts were shattered by the terrifying display of power. Billy tried to rise, but he was pushed back down by the energies colliding around him. Through the conflagration of energy, Sabbac stepped toward Shazam, moving closer with each second, his hands outstretched to crush the wizard.

The Historama shattered as it was struck by a stray surge of energy. Artifacts were broken and hurled off the shelves. The red granite statues imprisoning the Seven Deadly Sins started to crack. Shazam fell to his knees, and feebly held out a hand. The colliding energies disappeared, and the Dagger of Ares flew into Shazam's outstretched hand. The wizard rose to his feet, weakened by his previous effort, but still strong. Billy slowly stood up, recovering from the magical blast. He saw Fred and Mary flying in through the hole in the Rock of Eternity, trying to strike Sabbac from behind.

Everything seemed to slow to a crawl. Sabbac was trapped, with Shazam in front of him and the three Marvels behind him. Shazam thrust the Dagger of Ares at Sabbac's chest, aiming for the middle of the demon's glowing pentagram. The blade was only inches from the pentagram when Sabbac grabbed Shazam's arm, and savagely twisted it. The wizard cried out in pain as the bones in his arm were snapped, and Sabbac snatched the Dagger from him.

Before Billy could do anything, Sabbac plunged the dagger into Shazam's heart.

The world seemed to explode. Billy felt his powers being ripped from his body. The world was filled with light, and streaks of fiery debris. Times Square was rushing towards Billy. He saw Fred and Mary also tumbling. All three of the Marvels were struggling to resist the change that the loss of Shazam was inflicting upon them. Billy could not fly, and all he could was to try to hold onto the Courage of Achilles so he could remain invulnerable until they hit the ground.

The impact with the pavement below was shockingly painful, but it did not cause any serious injury. Billy saw Mary lying near him, in her own form. They did not see Fred. A cloud of debris was spreading in the sky from where the Rock of Eternity had exploded above Times Square. Pieces of the Rock, charged with energy from the explosion, fell into the city, blasting craters in the pavement and obliterating cars.

Billy kept his head down as the devastation rained down around him. Soon, the impact sounds and flashes of light ceased, but the screaming of people did not. Billy slowly rose to his feet, and Mary did the same.

When Billy finally looked, Times Square looked like a war zone. Nearly all of the brightly lit billboards and neon signs were out. Humongous posters for movies and Broadway plays were in shreds. The streets were filled with craters, and several buildings were in ruins. Dead and injured civilians seemed to be everywhere. People were screaming. Some were running from the scene, while others simply stared in shock.

And the horrors were not only on the ground. High above Times Square, a massive white cloud was expanding, quickly growing so large that it hid the sun, casting the world in a dark grey haze. As the shadow spread, the temperature dropped rapidly, as a feeling of deathly cold spread out over the city. At its edges, the white cloud was held in check by a ring of infernal fire. The fiery ring rapidly expanded, and Billy figured out what was causing the cold. Billy remembered that a fragment of the demon Ixitor had been kept in the Rock of Eternity, and it would now be free because of the Rock's destruction. _If it was released, what about the Seven Deadly Sins?_

As if in answer to Billy's question, people started to go insane all around him. Billy saw some people breaking into parked cars to steal what was inside. In one place, a ragged-looking man tried to break into a police car, as he was driven insane by greed, but the policeman, acting through stubborn pride, pulled out his gun and shot the robber dead. Elsewhere, people smashed the windows of restaurants in a desperate attempt to eat whatever they could as the sin of gluttony made them forget everything except their hunger.

Envy motivated some people to senselessly attack anyone who appeared to have more money than they did, while wrath provoked several fights. A couple started to kiss in the middle of the devastation, overwhelmed by their lust for each other. The police who were present at the scene were overcome by sloth, and did nothing to prevent the sudden surge of crime, or to restore order. The effects of the Sins spread throughout the city, as the cloud of demonic cold continued to widen.

Sabbac hovered in the sky, and Billy, desperately wanting to destroy the demon for what he had done, shouted, "Shazam! Shazam!"

Nothing happened, and Mary also did not accomplish anything when she spoke the magic word. They remained in their own powerless bodies.

Billy and Mary ran through the ruins of Times Square, stumbling over debris, searching for Fred and calling out his name.

They heard a voice saying, "Here!", and recognized it as Fred's. Their friend had landed on top of a wrecked Mercedes. Even now, a man controlled by envy and greed was searching through the car's smashed trunk.

Sabbac flew down from the sky with shocking speed and snatched Fred up into the air, as Billy and Mary called out Fred's name in utter horror.

With his free hand, Sabbac flung a fireball that exploded near Billy and Mary, striking two other people who were standing near them. Grabbing Mary's hand, Billy ran with her, fleeing onto what was now an unrecognizable street, as fireballs exploded around them.

They ran into a parking garage, dashing past rows of parked cars. Then, fiery debris suddenly fell in front of them, as the ceiling shook as a fireball blasted a hole in it. Sabbac flew through the orange-lipped hole, dragging Fred with him and carrying the Dagger of Ares at his side. In his own crippled body, Fred looked pathetic and terrified.

Billy and Mary stopped, knowing that they had nowhere to run. They spoke the wizard's name together, but nothing happened. Sabbac could find them regardless of how hard they tried to escape.

"Know that you have lost," Sabbac snarled. "Your precious Rock of Eternity has been destroyed. One piece of Ixitor is free, and shall cover this city, as the Seven Deadly Sins drive its people to give into their darkest desires, until they are no better than animals. Once I have reunited all thirteen pieces of Ixitor, the world will be plunged into a new ice age, and human civilization will perish. The Sins are free, Shazam is dead, and the Rock of Eternity is destroyed. Even now, my mortal servants are passing out deadly weapons to anyone who wants to use them. What have you to say for yourselves? What can you say to me?"

"We'll never give up," Fred said desperately. "Even if we are without our powers, there are still others who will believe in what we stand for. Even if we die, others will live, and they will know how terrible you are."

"These others – do they have any powers?" Sabbac asked mockingly. "Without the Rock, your gods can create no more champions."

His hand tightened around Fred's throat, and in that last moment before Sabbac could wring his neck, Fred cried out, "We'll always remember – Captain Marvel!"

To Fred's utter surprise, a lightning bolt blasted from the sky, flying through the multistory hole that Sabbac had created with his fire. The lightning threw Sabbac into a row of parked cars, and transformed Fred into Captain Marvel Jr. Billy and Mary invoked Shazam's name, but nothing happened.

"Go!" Fred yelled at Mary and Billy, as he flew towards Sabbac. Fred and Sabbac collided, and Fred was hurled backwards, flying right through the wall of the parking garage.

Billy and Mary ran for the parking garage's exit as a fireball exploded behind them, striking up a cloud of dust and flame. Sabbac flew straight for them, but he was slammed to the floor by Fred, who had flown back in through the hole that had been made when he was thrown through the wall. Fred wrestled with Sabbac, trying to keep him pinned down for just a few seconds so that Billy and Mary could escape.

"I curse all of you!" Sabbac exclaimed. "May the Seven Deadly Sins destroy you and everyone you care for!"

As Billy and Mary ran out onto the street, they heard loud crashing noises from inside the parking garage as Fred and Sabbac continued to fight. Fire blasted out of its windows when Sabbac's fireballs struck parked vehicles. Billy hated leaving Fred behind, but he had no choice. Without powers, he and Mary would only get in the way.

School had recently gotten out, and Tamara was at a shopping center with Jessica and Lauren, still unable to take her mind off what she knew could happen to Billy at any time. The three girls were standing on a sidewalk, waiting to cross the street, when the ring of fire passed over them in the sky above. They did not see it, but they saw the cloud of translucent white ice spreading in the air, casting the city in shadow while carrying a deathly chill with it wherever it spread.

"What the- Hey!" Lauren started to say something about the sudden clouds, but then the Seven Deadly Sins reached out, and a man who passing by on the sidewalk grabbed Tamara, motivated by the sin of Lust. Tamara shook her attacker off. Jessica and Lauren moved to help her, but they too were grabbed by men who had also been suddenly overcome with lust, and two other men grabbed hold of Tamara.

Suddenly, there was a gunshot, followed by two others. One of the men holding Tamara stiffened and then fell dead. The other three men ran away in sudden fear.

"RUN!" Tamara yelled.

She and her friends fled from the three gunmen who were chasing them. The assassins were armed with semi-automatic handguns. Tamara had no idea where they came from, but that did not matter now. Right now, all that mattered was getting away with them. It was utterly terrifying to Tamara, running away from the men, and hearing the sound of the gunshots, and of the bullets striking walls near her. She kept glancing over her shoulders at Lauren and Jessica, terrified that one or both of them might fall and never get up.

Elsewhere, Fred's friend Mike cried out in dismay as a crowd maddened with gluttony broke into the supermarket where he worked, and ripped food off the shelves, savagely devouring it. A man who was carrying a baseball bat tried to grab some of the candy that was sold at the counter. Mike snatched the box of candy away, and barely dodged the baseball bat when it swung towards him. The bat smashed the cash register, and Mike threw himself to the floor as coins flew around him like shrapnel.

As Mike cowered beneath the checkstand, he heard the distinctive sound of a shotgun being pumped. He rose, and saw Lucas, another employee, who was a friend of his, pointing a shotgun at the gluttonous crowd.

"BACK!" Lucas shouted, brandishing the shotgun dramatically to get the crowd's attention. "Everyone step away!"

The crowds dispersed, some of the people seeming to regain their sanity and leave the store, while others continued to satiate their hunger in other sections of the supermarket. Then, Mike saw a car that he vaguely recognized. It took him a second to remember that it was Chris's car, and then, acting faster than he had thought was possible, he threw himself behind the checkstand. A burst of gunfire ripped through the store as Chris, the school bully who was Mike's worst enemy, unleashed his wrath upon the store. Lucas collapsed as a bullet hole appeared in his stomach, Mike screamed in pain when a bullet slammed into his right leg just above the knee, and Chris continued shooting until his gun went dry. He picked up a semi-automatic pistol, and walked towards the supermarket, his eyes glowing with infernal fury.

Billy and Mary held hands to avoid losing each other in the press of people who were going in all directions. They did not have a destination in mind, they only wanted to get away from Sabbac.

"There must be some way for us to get our powers back," Mary said persistently.

"How?" Billy demanded.

"Fred's powers still work. He gets his powers from us. Then we must still have our powers. He seemed weaker when he was fighting Sabbac. If he was the only one who still had any power, he would be as strong as you were last month. We still have our powers, we just don't know how to-"

She paused, as they almost ran straight into a wall of people. They looked around them in all directions, as people with vacant expressions in their eyes surrounded him on all sides. Many of them were brandishing improvised weapons, such as knives, clubs, and even trash can lids. There was no doubt that this was Sabbac's curse at work.

"Are you ready?" Billy asked.

Mary nodded slightly. She looked as scared as he felt, but they both understood that they needed to get out of here. They ran straight at the crowd. Billy punched one possessed New Yorker in the jaw, and Mary knocked another one down with a kick to the shin. They ran between the Sin-possessed people, narrowly avoiding fists and improvised clubs. Everything seemed like a blur as they ran through the streets, avoiding the sudden attacks caused by the Sins.

A gunshot suddenly rang in Billy's ears, and for a second, he thought that somebody was trying to shoot him. Then he saw a man in a police uniform standing in front of him, having just fired a shot into the air to disperse the crowd. While keeping his gun trained on the crowd, the man motioned for Billy and Mary to follow him. Something seemed odd about the policeman, but the two teenagers were too exhausted and frightened to think about it. Now, at last, they could be safe with someone who could protect them.

When the man led Billy and Mary inside a restaurant, Billy noticed how cold the weather had become. For the first time, he was aware that he was shivering with the deathly chill of Ixitor's ice, which seemed colder than the blizzard that had been forecast for the following week.

At the policeman's direction, Billy and Mary sat down on a bench at the restaurant, and sat still as the cop pulled a quilt off the wall and draped it around them to provide some protection from the cold. A sense of giddy relief spread over Billy, as he realized that finally, he was safe, but he also was struck by a sudden feeling of despair, because he knew that he had lost. Fred was being pounded by Sabbac, and probably would be dead soon. The entire city was being destroyed by the power of Hell, and the rest of the world would soon follow.

But something seemed to not be right about the police officer, as he pointed his gun at the door, covering the entrance. It was like he wasn't NYPD. His uniform was blue, but it seemed vaguely different.

"His badge," Mary whispered.

Waldorf turned around, and Billy looked at the badge on the cop's chest, and saw that it read "PASSAIC COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT."

Suddenly, it all became clear to Billy. Someone in the police had obviously told Ishmael Gregor about where the witnesses were hiding. He must have had a corrupt cop on his payroll even before he was Sabbac. And then, Billy recognized the cop. It was Deputy Waldorf.

Waldorf suddenly aimed his gun at Billy. His eyes were glowing with the unnatural light of Sabbac's hypnotism. Like so many of Ishmael Gregor's minions, his mind had been taken over by Sabbac. Billy was too slow, and too far away. He could not react in time. But Mary could. Her foot lashed out, and kicked Waldorf in the shin.

Waldorf stumbled forwards as he pulled the trigger, and the bullet went wide, missing Billy by a foot. Billy and Mary tried to pounce on Waldorf and hold him down, but the blanket slowed them, and all three fell in a heap, overturning the table that Billy and Mary had been sitting at.

Billy grabbed Waldorf's gun arm, and as they struggled for control of the gun, it went off once, and a bullet struck a ceiling fan above them. Billy smashed Waldorf's head against the floor as Mary punched the rogue cop in the stomach. But Waldorf was tougher than either of them. He flung Mary away from him, and clouted Billy over the head with his gun. Just when Billy thought that he was about to realize how he could regain his powers, everything went black.


	12. Chapter 12

Billy was standing in a world of infinite white, with the six gods who had once empowered him. They stood in front of him in a semicircle, but he was no longer Captain Marvel. He was Billy Batson. Nothing more, nothing less.

"The wizard is dead," Zeus proclaimed with terrible finality. "The Rock of Eternity needs a new keeper."

"We have chosen you," Solomon said, stepping forward to face Billy. The other gods nodded their assent – all except Atlas, who gave a weary thumbs up.

"But I'm not ready," Billy protested, feeling insignificant, and unsuited for the task, after his previous failure.

"You are right, Billy," said a familiar voice behind him.

Billy turned and saw Shazam, clad in robes of brilliant white. "You- you're dead," Billy stammered.

"Yes," Shazam answered calmly. "But my spirit lives on with the gods. I can no longer hold the Rock of Eternity together. I would be lying if I said I believed that you were ready, but then, I was not ready when I took up the golden throne. I hoped that you would never have to do this, but I also knew that you could. If you choose to accept my place as the Keeper of the Rock of Eternity, you will have to leave behind everything you once knew. Your life in the mortal world will be but a memory that will slowly fade away. You will have to give everything to the cause of defending this world. But you will have your powers back, and so will Mary. Will you accept this fate?"

"I can't," Billy said. "In case you haven't noticed, the Rock of Eternity is gone."

"The Rock of Eternity lives on in your heart," Shazam said. "It can never be truly destroyed, as long as there is any good left in this world. You can rebuild it, and capture the Seven Deadly Sins. But first, you must defeat Sabbac. It will be a desperate and terrible battle, but victory is not impossible."

"I accept," Billy answered.

He regained consciousness, and then he was lying on the floor of the restaurant. He slowly and painfully opened his eyes, and saw Mary hovering over him. A couple of feet away, Deputy Waldorf lay unconscious on the floor.

"Are you alright?" Mary asked.

"I'm fine. How did you-"

"I took some martial arts classes," Mary said. "But we can talk about this later. Are you able to stand? We need to get out of here."

Billy rose to his feet, and said, "I think we can our powers back."

He stepped away from Mary, and she said, "We tried saying Shazam-"

The ceiling was blasted open by a lightning bolt, and Mary Bromfield turned into Mary Marvel. "Your turn," she said as a hint of a smile appeared on her face.

"Come on," Mary urged Billy when he did not say the magic word.

"I think it works differently for me," Billy said, as he focused on the power that he knew was within him. The lightning bolt came down from the sky, and turned him into Captain Marvel. He felt different now, as if he had powers that he did not understand, which he had never possessed before.

"Let's go kick some demon butt," Billy said, with the impossible cheerfulness that Captain Marvel somehow possessed in perilous situations.

Tamara peered around the edge of a massive sculpture that was in front of a large department store. She saw the three gunmen looking around the sculpture where she and her friends had taken shelter. The men started taking positions around the sculpture, ready to shoot anyone who came out from behind it. Cars were being easily stolen from a nearby parking lot, as their locks inexplicably ceased to function.

"We can't stay here forever," Tamara whispered, her voice shaky but controlled.

"Maybe – a distraction," Jessica said desperately. "If we could draw their attention for a moment-"

"It has to be me," Tamara said firmly.

"What?" Jessica demanded.

"They're after me," Tamara explained, feeling more and more frightened with every word she spoke. "It's because of – Captain Marvel. You know that. They don't care about you. They'll chase me anyway, but if I go to the left, and you go to the right, you'll be okay."

"We can't leave you," Jessica said in a terrified whisper.

"'I'll still have a chance," Tamara argued, wishing she believed that statement herself, but knowing that she could not keep putting her best friends in danger. "At least they won't try to hurt you if I'm going in the opposite direction."

"But we promised that we'd always be there for each other," Jessica protested.

Lauren, who had been oddly silent through the whole exchange, took Jessica aside and whispered something to her. Then, she turned to Tamara and said in a hollow voice, "We'll do it. We'll do as you asked."

Even though this was what she wanted, Tamara felt frightened and abandoned. She'd believed that she and her friends were inseparable, and would never abandon each other, even in the worst of times. Now, it felt like that was a lie. As much as Tamara wanted her friends to be safe, there was still a part of her that wanted them to stay until the end. And, she knew that she probably would not survive facing the gunmen alone, but it was too late to change her mind.

She surveyed the scene around the sculpture one last time, and then rushed out, running straight for a narrow alley. Bullets whizzed past her, and she barely made it inside the alley. She ran as the men continued shooting at her, and then she felt a sudden sense of panic when she saw that end of the alley was blocked off. She ran inside a small shed, and slammed the door shut behind her. With trembling fingers, she rapidly closed the bolt on the door.

A single dim lightbulb was on in the shed, and provided very little illumination. As the first bullet hit the door, and flew above her head, Tamara knew that she had only a few minutes left before they reached her. She wished that Billy could come and save her, like he had when Black Adam attacked her, but somehow, she knew that this time, she was on her own. She was certain that she would die soon, but at least, she had saved Jessica and Lauren. Finally, she understood something of what is must be like for Billy to be Captain Marvel, and she began to understand why he had tried to stay away from her.

"Chris – don't do this," Mike pleaded as Chris stood over him, pointing a gun at his head. Through the agony of his leg wound, Mike said, "You're not a murderer."

"You don't know me anymore," Chris said with a demonic glare, as his finger tightened on the trigger.

In one last, desperate attempt to save himself, Mike swung his good leg at Chris, striking both of the other boy's legs and tripping him. Chris fell over, and Mike grabbed his gun, forcing it out of his hands. The gun slid across the floor, and the two boys savagely pounded on each other. But Chris easily gained the upper hand, because Mike was hampered by the wound in his leg.

Fred was knocked from the sky, and landed on the nearly-unoccupied Brooklyn Bridge, throwing up a cloud of asphalt with his impact. His jaw throbbed with pain, and he felt weak and dizzy despite all of his powers. He had taken too many blows, and he knew that he was losing. Sabbac hovered over the bridge, and roared as he hurled a string of fireballs. Explosions shook the famous bridge, blasting it until a yawning chasm divided it in two. Fred rolled behind an abandoned car as a fireball exploded in front of him. He'd done his best, but he just couldn't defeat Sabbac. He wasn't strong enough.

Billy and Mary flew out of the icy clouds, and slammed into Sabbac. They both punched him, hurling him over the railing of the bridge. Sabbac nearly fell into the water, but he shot upwards, rising into the sky.

Finding a new reserve of strength, Fred rose into the air, following Billy and Mary as they chased Sabbac.

"Let's take him down," Billy said confidently.

"Billy – you've changed," Fred said.

"We can talk about that later," Billy said as he swerved to avoid a fireball while Mary dodged another fireball.

They chased Sabbac into the sky, following him as you flew higher.

"The Keeper is dead!" Sabbac exclaimed in disbelief. "How is this possible?"

"I _am_ the Keeper," Billy said, sounding somewhat different now, as he spoke with new confidence and maturity.

Billy flew straight at Sabbac, and punched him in the ribs. Sabbac went flying away from Billy, and then oriented himself like a missile, attempting to head-butt Billy, who dodged at just the right moment, and Sabbac's demonic horns only struck him a trivial glancing blow. As Sabbac and Billy passed each other, Mary grabbed Sabbac from beneath, and then started pushing him upward while pummeling him in midair.

In their aerial duel, Sabbac grabbed Mary by the throat, but he was forced to let go when Fred gave him a superpowered punch in the side of the head. Blood flew from Sabbac's mouth. He roared with pain and disengaged himself from Mary, and flew upwards, flying above the layer of icy clouds he had created.

The three Marvels followed Sabbac, taking positions all around him. Beneath them, they saw the ring of fire that hung in the air around Manhattan and parts of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and New Jersey.

Sabbac conjured fire in his hands, constantly turning to keep track of all three Marvels. He was surrounded, and while he might be more powerful individually than any of them were, it was hard for him to fight all three of them at once.

The Marvel Family flew at Sabbac from all directions. He flung a ring of infernal flames around him, but they flew right through it, and grabbed him together, pushing him towards the ground. They pushed him downwards, and then, acting in perfect harmony, all understanding what to do, the Marvels let go of Sabbac for a moment, and punched him simultaneously with all their strength.

Sabbac plummeted like a rock, and was hurled from the sky. He crashed through the roof of a factory, causing a rain of debris to fall all around him. He landed awkwardly on a large catwalk, and stood there as the Marvels shot through the gaping hole in the roof. They had become overconfident, and now they were easy prey.

Sabbac hurled two fireballs at the Marvels. Billy and Mary tumbled past his catwalk as fire clung to them, like downed fighter planes in a World War II battle. Fred flew through the flames, and punched Sabbac brutally, sending the demon staggering backwards.

Sabbac stayed on his feet, and did not fall off the catwalk. He and Fred faced each other, and then flew straight at one another. Their collision seemed anticlimactic. Rather than flying across the room, they fell away from each other, and landed on the catwalk, standing a few feet away from one another.

Fred slowly fell off the catwalk, the railing splintering as he passed through it. The Dagger of Ares, the weapon that could kill any living creature, protruded from Fred's chest.

Tamara lay on the floor of the shed. So far, all of the bullets that got through the door had flown above her. But when she heard a loud _clang_ of an impact and saw the bolt on the door break, she realized that the thugs had finally shot the lock.

The door slowly swung inward, and Tamara saw the three men aiming their guns inside. A blindingly bright light filled her vision, and for a moment, she thought that she had died and gone to whatever existed after death. But then, she heard frantic gunshots, and the _thuds_ of a car slamming into people. She heard a car door open, and a familiar voice said, "Stop! Put your hands where I can see them!"

When her eyes adjusted to the light, Tamara saw a stolen Lexus in the alleyway. The three gunmen were on the ground, and Jessica had picked up a gun from one of them. The gun discharged, and the three men put their hands up, thinking that Jessica could shoot them at any moment, and assuming that the gunshot was a threat. Tamara, who knew that Jessica had never fired a gun in her life until today, assumed that it was an accident, but either way, it worked, and the attackers surrendered as the light of madness started to leave their eyes. Tamara slowly stepped out of the shed, and saw Lauren sitting behind the wheel of the Lexus.

"We promised that we'd always be there for each other," Lauren said with a smile.

On the cavernous floor of the factory, Billy flew straight at Sabbac, who blasted him against a wall with another fireball. He slammed into a container of liquid coolant, which spilled out onto the floor. He felt the icy coolant flow over him, and then, as he saw other containers of coolant, an idea occurred to him.

"You are weak," Sabbac said. "You never did have a chance against me."

Mary was bending over Fred. The Dagger of Ares protruded from Fred's chest, and Mary tried to pull it out, but it would not move.

"Fred, please don't leave me," she begged. She'd seen Sarah Primm die, and she'd seen Fred get crippled by Sabbac. She _couldn't_ let him die. But there was nothing she could do. The Dagger would not budge, no matter how hard she tried to pull it out.

"Better to die like this," Fred said weakly as blood started to trickle from his mouth, "than to live as a cripple. At least I have done something good for this world."

"Don't say that," Mary pleaded. "You're going to be okay. Just hold on."

"Mary," Billy said in a voice heavy with sadness, as he knew that his oldest friend was about to die, but he also knew that there was something that he had to. He knew that it was what Fred wanted. "I need your help."

"I can't leave him," Mary said, as tears ran down her face. Now, she knew more than ever before how much she cared for Fred. It felt horrible that he would be taken away from her after such a short time. She couldn't leave him.

Fred looked into Mary's eyes. "Please. Help… him. This is … what we were meant to do."

Fred seemed to have some idea of what Billy was planning to do. With great reluctance, Mary left Fred's side, and Billy whispered in her ear what they needed to do.

"He was so weak," Sabbac said. "So easy to kill. Just like his grandfather. I killed his grandfather with greed. The doctors were convinced they could save a little money by taking him off life support."

Mary rose into the air, and Sabbac glided over Fred's prone form to attack her. Sabbac formed fireballs in both of his hands, and hurled them at Mary. She dodged, and the fireballs exploded behind her, turning a machine to dust. Mary flew towards Sabbac, dodging more fireballs as Billy broke more containers of coolant.

Mary ducked beneath another fireball, and then she held out both of her arms, and Sabbac was struck by the strongest blast of lightning that Mary could conjure. Billy flung his arms forward, and a white pulse of light struck Sabbac. The ice spell was empowered by Ixitor's essence, and by the liquid coolant that Billy had released. In the moment that he was stunned by Mary's lightning, Sabbac was suddenly vulnerable to the ice spell. It enveloped him, freezing him solid.

Billy flew towards Sabbac and stood near him, arm poised to strike. The ice was starting to crack, and Sabbac was beginning to stir. Billy needed to kill him. This was his best chance. He wanted Sabbac dead, as he desired revenge for what happened to Fred, to Jacob Freeman, and to everyone else. But something made Billy hesitate for a second. It felt wrong to kill out of anger and revenge, even though Sabbac unquestionably deserved it.

A sudden _crash_ echoed through the desolate interior of the factory. Cracks spread through Sabbac's frozen form, and he shattered into a thousand white fragments.

And then, Billy heard a voice that he had feared he would never hear again, saying, "That was for my grandfather." Fred Freeman, as Captain Marvel Jr., stood behind where Sabbac had been. He had pulled the Dagger of Ares out of his own chest and hurled it through the wall of the factory, making a small hole in the metal and concrete. The blood on his costume was already flowing back into his body, as the Stamina of Atlas healed him.

The world started to warm up noticeably, and Billy could already feel the demonic ice fading as the city returned to its normal temperature. He could sense that the Seven Deadly Sins were fleeing, and the madness that had gripped New York was over. A grin broke out across his face once he fully understood that the battle with Sabbac was over, and Fred was alive and well.

Mike was on the floor, groaning in pain, as Chris aimed a gun at him from above. Lucas was slowly bleeding to death from the wound in his stomach, and Chris remained in the grip of the strange madness.

"Goodbye," Chris said.

Before Chris could pull the trigger, he suddenly flinched. His eyes returned to normal for a moment, and then widened in shock. "What have I done?" he said as a horrified expression appeared on his face.

Chris dropped the gun, and pressed his hands over the bullet would in Lucas's stomach, trying to save the young man's life.

"Sabbac, Seven Deadly Sins," Chris blurted. "They were controlling me. I'm free now. Captain Marvel-"

He said nothing more, but even with the agony of his bruises and the bullet hole in his leg, Mike felt a sense of gratitude to Captain Marvel for having stopped Sabbac in time. When an evil force was this strong, it had to be destroyed, and Marvel was only doing what needed to be done. Finally, Mike understood that Captain Marvel was only trying to do his best to help people. Marvel never wanted Mike's uncle, or any other innocent person, to be hurt.

"It's over," Mary said happily as the three flew above New York City, which was now returning to normal. "We did it."

"We beat Sabbac," Billy said, sounding like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. "But Blaze is still out there, Black Adam has regained his powers, and the Seven Deadly Sins are still free. For now, we must recapture the Sins, and I must rebuild the Rock of Eternity. But it may not be long before Blaze strikes back. We must be ready when that happens."

"We will be," Fred promised. "So, are you going to whatever is left of the Rock of Eternity now?"

"Not yet," Billy said. "There's something I have to do first."

When Billy landed near Tamara, Jessica, and Lauren, a block away from the alley where Tamara had almost died, all three of them understood why he had come. Jessica and Lauren left, so Billy could be alone with Tamara.

"I had to take Shazam's place," Billy said. "That means I'll have to take a rain check on that movie. I have a war to fight, and I can't afford to be Billy Batson anymore, now that I am the Keeper of the Rock of Eternity."

"I understand," Tamara said sadly. "Really, I understand. When Lauren and Jessica and I were attacked, I was willing to die so they could live. When I saw them in danger, I understood why you always tried to stay away from me. I know that your mission is more important than anything we might have had."

"I'm sorry," Billy told her. "I wish he could have been together." He understood how she felt about him, and knew what needed to be done. This had to end, with no misunderstandings.

"I want to know what it's like," Tamara said suddenly. "Just one kiss?"

"You want to kiss Captain Marvel?"

"No, silly. I want to kiss _you_."

Billy summoned the lightning bolt without speaking, and then turned back into himself. The kiss lasted for a few seconds, and in that time, Billy was able to forget about everything that had just happened. He could forget about the Rock of Eternity, and the Seven Deadly Sins – well, all except one.

When they pulled away, Billy slowly stepped away from Tamara, and summoned the lightning bolt again.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I imagined this story as a movie, and if it was a movie, I think it would have the following songs played in the end credits:

30 Seconds to Mars – The Kill

Two Steps From Hell – Captain Universe

Katie Herzig – Way to the Future

Also, if it was a movie, it would have a post-credits scene, which is in the next chapter.


	13. Chapter 13

The sun was coming out, dissipating the clouds of demonic ice. Outside a factory in western Brooklyn, Angelica Blaze picked up the Dagger of Ares. A smile spread across her face as she held it carefully between her fingers. She gazed at the blade, seeing an image from the other side of the world reflected in its gleaming steel.

_Black Adam hovered above a crowd of Kahndaqi people. Behind him, the capitol building of Kahndaq was in ruins. He held Muzzaf Amadin by the throat, preventing the dictator from speaking._

"_I have come to deliver you from his tyranny," Adam pronounced. "From this day forward, I take my rightful place as the ruler of Kahndaq._

_The dictator's neck broke with a sudden snap._


End file.
